I did Navy Nuke because I had good scores and absorbed info quickly, but had no effing clue on what I wanted to do with my life. I did Subs vs Carrier because I could choose a Sub that had a home port vs always at sea (scores gave me a voting choice), and I liked a group of folks that I knew (150 ish folks vs 5000 ish).
I’d get a short version of claustrophobia for only a day, to be matched with a short burst of agoraphobia when it was time to shift to land. (being 6ft 1in, I learned quickly where to duck). The smell that would permeate my clothes was the only real pain…… Think Ozone, BO, sweat, random farts, black water, assholes smoking cigarettes in a steel tube, and the sulfur from the machine oil. The name was “Boat Funk”, and *would not* wash out of your clothes.
It was mostly like working inside a building all damn day (I’m not an outdoors type person). The only issue that I had was that if there was a yahoo that wanted to mess with you, you could only be no more than 560 ft away. I did not re-enlist because we invaded an unrelated nation for profit ( I might have been sold on Afghanistan, but Iraq an obvious profiteering)….
I look back with nostalgia to deal with the equipment and the challenge, but then I have to remember the assholes that encouraged me to not re-enlist ( I was wearing the rank of an E6 in just over five years, and did not want to deal with the bull shit).