[scott.henry]

Realistically, most Nukes will go to one of the Prototypes for their first Shore Duty just due to the manning requirements at the Prototypes. I was an outlier because I navigated a 20 year career as a Navy Nuke without ever doing a Staff tour at Prototype. I sold my soul and did Recruiting for my first shore duty. I DO NOT recommend Recruiting Duty. My last shore tour was an Instructor tour at Power School. This is, hands down, the best Shore Duty for Nukes. If you want to go to back to Nuke School for Shore Duty, you must be ranked in the upper half of your class in both Power School and Prototype. There are no waivers for this requirement. It's pretty easy to get orders to Prototype as long as you keep your nose clean in the Fleet and perform satisfactorily (getting all of your quals done on time, etc.). RDC duty is available, but your detailer has to release you from their control to the special programs detailer and there is a screening process. The same holds true for Recruiting Duty. There are other shore billets available for nukes at maintenance facilities, but those are usually few and far between. Some of those can end up being good deals, some not so much. A few of my friends that have had Shore Duty at those facilities say that the Navy personnel that work there constantly get called out to work outside of "normal work hours" because the civilians aren't authorized for overtime. So the sailors essentially get used and abused.
What it boils down to, is that Nukes are pretty limited on their options for Shore Duty (and homeports for Sea Duty, especially if you're Surface Designated). Your chances of getting something outside of the Nuke training Pipeline are pretty slim unless it's Recruiting (I would rather get up every morning for the rest of my life and eat a bowl of broken glass for breakfast than go back to Recruiting Duty) or RDC Duty. While the possibility of getting something else is pretty slim, always ask the question, though. The worst thing they can do is tell you no.