I am not and have never been a sailor,but I grew up near Norfolk,Va,and went to school with and knew many children of the US Navy,as well as some of their fathers.
MY impression of the CAREER US Navy has always been that they are all a bunch of backstabbing bastards that will put their personal careers ahead of everything else,including the country.
The exceptions were the ones that lived off-base and did their best to keep their careers and their family and personal lives separate. They saw the Navy as a job that led to retirement,nothing more.
As for the SEALS,the only ones I ever met casually and had personal talks with were the ones going through the US Army jump school at Ft.Benning in 1965. These guys flat impressed the hell out of me with their intelligence and enthusiasm. Then again,NONE of them were actual SEALS at that time. They were still UDT/Frogmen going through SEAL training,and the US Army jump school was step number 1 in the transition.
They impressed me to the point I was genuinely worrying about making the wrong decision when I joined the Army instead of the Navy.
It needs to be said at THAT point in my career all I knew about the army was from the perspective of a private in the regular army. Right after I graduated from Jump School,I got sent to the Special Warfare Center at Ft.Bragg,and to a Special Forces duty assignment. THE best damn job in the entire freaking universe,and I spent most of my days working with the best damn soldiers in the entire freaking universe. If I could do it all over again,I would be wearing a uniform and a beret before dark.
A word of caution to any of you young men reading this. Do NOT go into SF and allow yourself to start thinking that the personal standards and the conduct of SF soldiers represents the personal standards and conduct of the rest of the world. It just ain't true. You can trust your life to anyone who wears a green beret as a part of their uniform,and you can't trust anyone else to pay back a 10 dollar loan.
Ugly,but the truth is often ugly.