Thanks
@Chuckman
This will be long.
First, let me say that suicide is a very serious thing, something I'm sure we can all agree on.
Second, there's more to this than what's in the article. The article honestly doesn't point out anything significant at all, in my opinion. It reads just like every other article I've read on suicide, military or not. You can almost use it as a cookie cutter article; change a few details, and you've got another suicide article about another organization.
Suicide in MOST cases involves a crap ton of stress. For some people, there's also a chemical imbalance in there somewhere.
The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP) has ALWAYS been stressful. I'll talk a bit about why and then a bit about how it's different now than when I first joined in 1985.
The program is stressful because it requires a focused academic and hands-on training effort that spans about 2 years before going to your first sea going command. It is also stressful because of the program's focus on integrity and other related aspects.
There are, indeed, some challenging college level courses on things like heat transfer & fluid flow, reactor kinetics, reactor protection analysis, and some calculus level math involvement.
In-rate (meaning your professional rating, like electronics technician, machinest mate, electricians mate, etc) you'll also have gone through classes before the nuclear training part learning about basic electricity and electronics, electronics technician A-school, mechanic stuff, etc.
And, after all that is completed, you go to a Nuclear Power Training Unit (NPTU) and learn how to actually qualify as a nuclear operator on a real nuclear plant.
It is stressful because it's a no-sh*t REAL nuclear propulsion plant these people are training to become operators on.
This ain't the fry-cook at a fast food joint.
This ain't the espresso machine operator at Starbucks.
This ain't the clothing department at Kohl's.
It's f*cking nuclear propulsion plant.
You don't flip a switch without thinking about how it affects the plant.
You don't operate anything without the procedures AND understanding what the procedures do AND why the procedures are written the way they are.
The program is stressful because it HAS to be in order to both get the operators needed AND to weed out those who shouldn't be there in the first place. You cannot spend 4 years or more moving students sedately through a training program before the Navy can send a person to their first sea going command.
NOW...the difference between now and when I came in.
This article talks about 10 percent who don't make it through the program.
And THAT'S A SERIOUS PROBLEM.
But it's NOT serious in the way you, or most other people, think it is.
When I was an instructor at NPTU Charleston, the attrition rate goal was single-digit. And that bothered me.
It bothered me because that's TO FRICKING LOW.
Care to guess what the attrition rate was for my class when I went through the program?
Take a guess.
If you guessed any number less than 50%, you were wrong.
That's right...half the people who started out in the nuclear pipeline from the time they enlisted as a nuke did not make it through the program.
I was in the last ET-A school to have nuke ETs in it at Great Lakes before it became an all nuke student school at Nuclear Power Training Command in Orlando. As a nuke, back then, attending ET-A school with non-nuclear ETs, if you weren't in the upper 10% at graduation, you weren't going to Nuke School.
At Nuke School, yes...you spend 5 days a week in class all day, about 8 hours a day. If you were weak in some academic area, you put in extra hours. 5, 10, 20, 30, whatever.
Lots of people bitched, to be sure. I didn't. Know why?
Because I had spent the last 3 1/2 years of my life attending Purdue University full time carrying 15 to 17 semester credit hours while working one job with 20 to 30 hours overtime each week PLUS two to three odd jobs year round.
Nuke school was 40 hours a week, sure...but also getting paid for it, having full medical and dental, and a roof over your head. Not busting your keister working another 40 to 80 hours a week or more on top of that to support yourself and pay for school.
Cry me a f***ing river if you have to put in some extra study time.
After that came prototype training, where you learned to qualify as a real operator on an actual nuclear plant.
Rotating shift work where I put in 11, 12, or 13 hour days for 7 days straight (depending on which shift) before getting a couple days off and rotating to the next shift.
Again...while getting paid for it.
And integrity was a huge deal. If you had too many tickets before you enlisted, you had to get a waiver. If you got too many speeding tickets while in the program, you were a risk and booted from the program.
If you had ANY integrity issue at all...lying, cheating, stealing, whatever...you were booted.
Drugs? Zero tolerance, nuke or not.
Every effort and opportunity was presented to get students through the program academically, but there were other reasons that could get you booted.
50% attrition then compared to 10% now.
There are a whole lot of people being pushed through the program WHO SHOULD NOT BE.
And THAT'S A HUGE PROBLEM.
As an instructor I saw it. I brought it up. I got BS responses from the command about it.
Here's what happens in the real world:
Nuclear Field A School pushes every student they possibly can through to Nuclear Power School. Because a high attrition rate looks bad on them. The goal is low single digit, as low as possible.
Nuclear Power School gets these students and guess what they do? They push every possible student through EVEN THE ONES WHO SHOULDN'T HAVE MADE IT TO NPS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Heaven help them if their attrition numbers were higher than Nuclear Field A Schools, because then they must be doing something wrong.
Now you have students going to NPTU learning how to qualify on actual reactor plants and the goal, once again, is to get every possible student through.
And after that... these Sailors go to the fleet and they become the Fleet's problem.
See where I'm going here?
The NNPP is stressful and will ALWAYS be stressful. It's the nature of the beast and sugar coating it won't change that.
Yes, these people are truly among the most intelligent people you are likely to encounter as a group. But that also means you're going to have a higher rate of other problems for various reasons.
Refusing to recognize this and not dealing with it will result in more problems than there ought to otherwise be.
These people are, overall, used to being high achievers. Many are high achievers because they are "smarter than the average bear" and were never challenged. Dump them in with a group of high achievers and suddenly they're not such high achievers anymore and have to do something they've never had to do before. Namely WORK at it, because it no longer comes so easy.
That's a buttload of stress.
Add to this the fact that some come to the program with other obligations, like a family to support. Failing is "not an option" either. That's another buttload of stress.
And, like the rest of humanity, these people come from all kinds of backgrounds and with all kinds of baggage.
Some are *ssholes. Some maybe from bad families. Some made poor choices in marriage. Whatever.
Pushing people through the program without regard to all this, for whatever reason, does them no good.
Not working to get them straight in the head does them no good.
And it d*mn sure isn't doing the Fleet any good, either.
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