NAE is in a perilous state right now. Airplanes that were supposed to last 20+ years at a Cold War OPTEMPO are being worn out in half that. Squadrons that have a ramp full of broken/canabalized airplanes just to put a handful in the air. Squadrons that exist on paper only because a true decommissioning requires an act of Congress. Boats in the yards for 2-3 times what was forecast. On and on and on.

15 years of war has completely worn out the fleet with no real affordable future for replacement. Blocks of F-35 orders have been shifted to superhornets because they're cheaper. Marine Corp TACAIR is in even worse shape. The sunset of the legacy Hornet fleet has been moved forward because they're just worn out.

Can't speak to the rotary or maritime piece, but the other shoe has dropped on the Hornet community and its ugly. It's going to take a lot of years and a lot of money to repair/replace.

Plus, who wouldn't want to live in San Diego/San Fran/Tampa/Hawaii/Alaska etc and fly helos in real world ops? Those guys don't have to do a year of work ups and then another year of deployment... over and over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, I would go back and do it all again... but if I knew then what I know now, it would be a REALLY hard choice.

Put it this way, unless you know, gouge/rumor be damned that your place is in a grey jet/helo flying off ships at sea, if you need to be convinced, then it's probably not for you and you have your answer. If you're not willing to pay any price, suffer any pain, do any job required of you, endure any injucstice to one day take that cat shot on a glorious day at sea.... it's probably not the place for you.