Why did I get out?
- My community had an abysmal rate for DH screen - something like 30% on their first look at that time, as I recall - because the economy was in the shitter and no one was getting out.
- Because of my couple years of Shoe time I was not on the 'normal' career gates for my YG and the detailers couldn't even agree whether my Shoe tour counted as a Disassoc.
- Cruise lengths were ramping up...Mrs Fester's Air Wing had already been hit with the quick-turnaround shot in '07 and it was only getting worse (i.e., to about where it is today).
- Fester 2.0 was born while we were on shore duty and I was enjoying being a daddy who was home for dinner every night.
So, best case was I got picked up on my first look in April and HAD to be back in a squadron by October to catch up with my YG. Frankly, despite the fact that I worked with and for some really shit-hot DHs in the Fleet, their job didn't look in the remotest bit appealing to me. Always on the road or on the Boat. Even when you were home, you weren't home. Cruises were getting longer. And to what end? To maybe possibly be a skipper someday? Again, I had the great fortune to work for some really awesome front offices, some of the best dudes I've ever met in the Navy, and you couldn't pay me enough to take their job. All the responsibility and no authority - 'success' consisted of not screwing up before your relief arrived.
And that was best case. Assuming I didn't get picked up first look, what are we going to do with you for a year until your next look? Not going to let you hang around P'cola any more...enjoy Bagram, asshole.
The Bonus for aviators isn't good enough to tempt people into staying in...my friends I know who took it didn't stay for the money; more like, "I'm staying in anyway, may as well take the money".
So, to sum up: zero career flexibility, crushing and unpredictable deployments with no end in sight, and lack of a desirable reward for staying in (career or monetary) for the hardships demanded. Between the Reserves and my civilian job with the Iron Works I've stayed plugged in to what's happening to my friends who stayed on AD, and I've seen nothing to make me regret my decision since. Yes, the pay and benefits are pretty good on AD and the grass is most definitely not always greener. But what the Navy is doing is spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars recruiting and training people, then doing absolutely nothing to try and retain the talent and training. Find me any business anywhere that would spend three years training someone, get maybe 6 years' return on that training (less if they don't go to a production shore billet), and then let them go with only the most half-assed attempts to keep them.