Maybe ONCE in your life you have to make a BIG decision
 

The post of the CO of the carrier being relieved and all the second guessing going around, not only here but on several other forums I visit and post to such as muzzle loading and antique rifles got me to thinking.....what was the one big, I mean really big decision you might have to make in your life. Since I am 75 now and retired from several jobs (Navy nuclear machinist, Oracle DBA, evening teacher) and I got to thinking back on all the decisions I had made throughout my life and there is one BIG one that resulted in many things happening later on. It can be like a solder that takes the shot or maybe doesn't and his buddy gets killed or you drink and drive and have a wreck and those are the magnitude I mean. It went like this:

I make chief petty officer in 6 years and was well on my way to be a very senior enlisted man. I was stationed at the nuclear training facility in upstate N.Y. (where the "ball" is) and we were in a refueling mode, the second I had done. We had the top off the reactor vessel and all 3 steam generators filled solid and was watching temperature of the water like a hawk. There was some latent heat still coming out of the pressure vessel and coolant pumps and the shift supervisor wanted to jog the pumps.....which with vessel open and steam generators solid was very dangerous and on top of that there was no procedure for that! I had a very good E6 on watch in the engine room, roving around and the SS told him to go to the enclosed operating station and jog the pumps for 15 seconds. He was concerned and told him so but was ordered to do it. He came into the office/machine shop to tell me and I got real upset and during this time the SS told a junior reactor operator to do it so he did! We stopped the pumps after 10 seconds as the steam generator pressure gauges went past 3000#! Oh were we in big trouble for sure. The division officer panicked and by then word had gotten to the Naval Reactors Field Office of the over pressure accident we had.

So the pressure came down after running reactor compt. fans on high speed and after shift we had an incident meeting and I got the word even Rickover had been called!
The junior enlisted ET went in first and came out nearly crying saying the shift supervisor was trying to make it look like we had done it on our own and my E6 machinist was next. He turned white as sheet but I said I would go next. I went in and it was a surprise and I talked for about 15 minutes and went over everything that happened and what I and others had told the SS. He was asked to leave the meeting and I had to repeat several things. My E6 went in and pretty much said the same thing I had. He was super relieved nothing was going to happen to us, at least not then.

The next day we had a new shift supervisor and the rumor floated up the our old one had been fired but in reality he was given a month with no pay and 6 months of training before he could come back. When our next yearly evaluations came out one of my grading points was listed very low and the reason given was I could not control my men working for me. I figured something like that so I wrote a rebuttal and even attached the minutes of the meeting BUT my action for sticking up for one of the people under me resulted in my never making E8 or E9 I figure. I saw the guy several years later and he was getting out as he figured he'd never make chief and it was shame things turned out that way as he was great. But I ended up going to the Bainbridge and then the Truxtun where I went my current wife while we were having an over haul and she was a marine engineer! If I had been an E8 or E9 I would have gone back to a carrier and I was happy not to.

So have any of you made a big decision that had long lasting effects???

I decided to buy a house without my wife being present...big decision with big consequences. It took about 6 years and $100k to “fix it” so she would start to like it ;).

Does anyone understand the first sentence? Is it English?

Seems the big decision you had to make was to reply or not reply. You made the wrong decision.

To the OP, luckily I've never had to make life or death decisions. My biggest might be to buy or not buy a certain piece of equipment for resale. I'm happy with that being the biggest decision I have to make.

I didn't shoot my ex's lover.

I asked my now wife to marry me. Totally changed my life for the better.

Easy.
To walk away from an engineering career that was just starting to peak and become an entrepreneur.
Everyone in my life - and I mean everyone - was against it. I had no support, but in my heart I knew what I had to do.

I understood it. It just needs some punctuation.

My biggest, and best decision was to leave the job I loved. I worked 9 years as a pressman on an 8 unit Harris offset printing press printing the local newspaper, and several University papers as well.I loved the hours 8 PM-4:30 AM, but most nights we were out 1-2 hours early with pay. I liked the guys I worked with, and eventually moved up to actually running the control board while printing (responsible for color alignment, water control, speed, and finished product).

The hours were good, but the benefits sucked, the pay sucked, and filling in for anyone that was off sucked.

With expenses from a new baby (our second) mounting, and not seeing an end to our spiraling debt, I had to find something different. I went to a local factory making rubber autoparts for suspensions, and worked 15 years in production, and so far another 6 years in prototype engineering.

When I went to this new job, my health insurance (including Dental/Vision) was far better for half the price, I started making $5 an hour more than the press job, and it was closer to home.