I like your enthusiasm towards your dream of flying the Tomcat. It reminds me of myself five years ago. We have a Sea cadet unit by the Naval Reserve Base by me, but it's more or less a JROTC Nazi thing. If you want the Naval academy it'll look good on the resume. That's about it. If you maybe lack the discipline for military life, then I would reccomend it. The best advice I can tell you is to work your butt off and get into a good college. Once your there get the best GPA you can (It is the most important part of your selection) in a major such as engineering or technology. Remember your competing against everyone in the Academy, OCS, and NROTC unit midshipmen so you gotta want it more than all of them. Period!!!
Now, I was on active duty this summer at NAS Oceania and found out the lowdown on the F-14 situation. All the 6 remaining squadrons are there, and most are going to start transitioning to the F-18E "Stupid Hornet" (no offense to the fellow Charlie modeln hornet drivers) sometime next year. I wanted to fly the F-14 since I first saw at the sirshow as a kid. Researchin her for most of my life, I know that she the best fighter that was ever designed, and the Navy will regret retiring her. Grumman F-14 Tomcat- "ANYTIME BABY", and isnt it the truth.
I don't know if many know, but there was a strike fighter version of the Tomcat that was put on Congress's doorstep, called the Tomcat 21 Project (21st century Tomcat). But lobbists in Congress, known as the "Hornet Mafia" kept pushing the problems that the currents Tomcats have with maintenance downtime and the compressor stalls in the Aplha models leading to many aircraft losses, and the in creasing costs to keep her the olderairframes in the air. But hey man the bottom line is that whatever you fly (Jets, Helo, Multi-props) your still doing your duty, protecting the country. That's all that really matters is saving and defending peoples lives. So go get em' kid and I'll see ya in the fleet. FLY NAVY!!!!