United States | News & Politics

Former Navy here. My experience was kind of opposite, however I knew when I rose my hand the first time it was bs. I told my recruiter I wasn't going, and he said that that oath was solid, and I called him on it. I eventually went and spent nine years.

The oath was the only time my recruiter lied to me, but everything else was honest. I'm not saying he didn't paint a rosy picture, he did, yet he told me not every day was going to be like that. I caught up with him for HARP duty, and he let me know how much he hated recruiting and wanted to go back out to sea (this is saying something because shore duty is supposed to be the shit for a duty station...I spent mine in Key West). The last time I saw him was in Norfolk on Pier 12 as he was making his way to the USS America, and I was making my way to the USS Enterprise.

There's a lot of pressure to fulfill quotas, and a recruiter's advancement is dependent upon making those quotas. It's a lot of pressure for someone to have when the two to three years you spend on shore duty is classically supposed to be better than spending your time on a ship (or boat if you're a submariner).