Tag: joining

Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Why I Am a Reagan Member of Ricochet

 

I have been a member of Ricochet since it started. I signed up for a free test drive through their Facebook membership. By the time that expired I was hooked and signed up. At the time, the hook was a free membership for NR digital. I have let that lapse and I am still here. National Review used to be my go to page for conservative news, but those days passed somewhere during Obama’s second term. Ricochet is where it is at!

The main feed has news and commentary by contributors. It is not comprehensive by any means, but reflects a broad spectrum of conservative and libertarian thought. I am not sure if it is all “center-right” but I am not sure what that means. I do know that I see, intelligent, topical posts by leading individuals. I don’t always agree, sometimes I do, and sometimes it is just worth a laugh. The gems on the Main Feed, though are not from the professionals, they are from the Members.

The Ricochetti (as we call ourselves) are a diverse group of conservatives and libertarians (with a few brave liberals, God bless ‘em), who do the majority of the posting here. That is where the real action is. Following the Member Feed is a full time job, but that is OK, Ricochet allows you to follow your favorites. For me, anytime one of 103 Members I follow makes a new post, I am alerted to go read it. Not all are prolific, and not all are people with whom I agree most of the time. All of them are people who have something to say that I value. I hope that is the case of the 49 people who follow me.

Promoted from the Ricochet Member Feed by Editors Created with Sketch. Why I Joined the Navy

 

023d609e1cc415731fd5bdaa02c89e83I was a third semester senior at NC State — a physics major. I had applied for graduate school in physics at State and the University of Virginia, but hadn’t received word on acceptance. Later that October, I was sitting outside a classroom waiting for my next class, when I glanced up at a poster on the bulletin board. It showed a picture of a guy looking through a periscope, with words like “Join the Navy” and “Nuclear Power.” It sounded cool to me. I was taking nuclear physics and quantum mechanics at the time, and I thought “This sounds like a job opportunity.” I pulled off one of the tear-away post cards, filled it out, and mailed it in to the local recruiter in Raleigh.

Things happened fast after that. I got a call from the local recruiting office. They wanted to meet me. I drove there one afternoon, met my recruiter — a Navy pilot — and we got down to business. I took some kind of standardized test and had an interview. I must have scored well. A few days later, I was invited to fly to DC for a series of additional tests, and possibly an interview with … Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy.

So, I flew up to Washington, did the tests and interviews, and the rest was history — I got accepted into the US Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate program. Now, we get to the meat of this post’s title — why did I join in the first place?