The term used to refer to any sailor who has dropped from the Navy’s nuclear field. This term is used for those who were involuntarily dropped as well as those who voluntarily dropped.

Those who involuntarily drop are those who cause trouble or fail academically. I heard all sorts of stories about people getting to the end of school and getting in trouble the weekend before they graduate only to be sent packing. Then there were other stories about students who fail repeated exams and spend every spare minute in mandatory study, only to fail one last time. These people either are sent out to the fleet as non-rated firemen or worse, kicked out of the Navy.

Those who voluntarily drop include those students who also fail, but drop prior to a retry. Others include people like me. I passed their entrance test and enlisted to go into the nuclear field. However, I did not meet one requirement, I had a C- in high school algebra for one quarter. I did take math in college and did decent at it, but that one quarter was holding me back. After hearing all of the nuke school horror stories, I took my chance at getting out of nuke school and went into Gas Turbine School instead.

So being nuclear waste isn’t all that bad. Some of us turned out for the better while others turned out for the worse. We had two ex-nukes on our crew and they were really good sailors.