- Joined
- Oct 21, 2009
- Messages
- 1,465
Making it to BUDS as an Officer is extremely difficult no matter what your commissioning source. I had a shipmate in my reserve unit that was a USNA grad, he went through all the SEAL programs at USNA, as a 1/C he was the M/N leader of the program you would think he was a shoe in. Nope, he said the wrong thing to the SEAL LT one day and poof, his SEAL career is over before it even starts. He never even made it to BUDS.
There was a guy a couple years behind me at KP who ended up failing out and finishing at SUNY. He wanted SEAL but wasn't going to get in so he turned down the commission and went to a recruiter. He enlisted and is now a SEAL.
Granted these are anecdotal, but in my opinion, if you are driven to be a SEAL and that is your ultimate goal than go enlist. Is it so important to be an Officer? Is being a SEAL Officer that important to you that you would give up being a SEAL altogether? If you look in to the Commissioning programs available to enlisted personnel you will see that it is much more likely to get commissioned as an already serving SEAL than it is to get selected for BUDS as an already serving Officer.
Which is fall back position will make you happier if you don't make your ultimate goal, being a SEAL First Class Petty Officer, or being a SWO Ensign?
There was a guy a couple years behind me at KP who ended up failing out and finishing at SUNY. He wanted SEAL but wasn't going to get in so he turned down the commission and went to a recruiter. He enlisted and is now a SEAL.
Granted these are anecdotal, but in my opinion, if you are driven to be a SEAL and that is your ultimate goal than go enlist. Is it so important to be an Officer? Is being a SEAL Officer that important to you that you would give up being a SEAL altogether? If you look in to the Commissioning programs available to enlisted personnel you will see that it is much more likely to get commissioned as an already serving SEAL than it is to get selected for BUDS as an already serving Officer.
Which is fall back position will make you happier if you don't make your ultimate goal, being a SEAL First Class Petty Officer, or being a SWO Ensign?