So I posted this in r/Navy, but I figured it's generic enough to ask the greater military community in general

I am an ETN1 (SS), served on two fast attacks (SSN 761 and SSN 769), now serving in Bangor for 56NT (Nuclear Testing of basically Hydro-mechanical systems and gauges) after doing a good bit in 105.3 (Radiation Monitoring, I was the guy who issued and read TLD's and did maintenance on the TLD reader.)

With that, I also have a personal affinity for mechanical and electrical practically anything. I've taken apart microwaves and used the parts to fix a food grinder, vacuum cleaner... I've done my own troubleshooting of electrical harnesses/wiring of toys and tools, I measured, designed, and 3-d printed a multi-stage unitized gear for my son's Powerwheels toy and soldered in my own home-made charging connector that disconnects the battery when you plug in..and lastly I'm now taking the magnets out of microwaves' magnetron's and using them in conjuction with the rotor of universal motors to make permenant magnet DC motors (Will let you know how that goes, high hopes, they're pretty strong ceramic magnets and the rotors are fairly robust).

With all this gear-brain style everything that I've been doing, I'm actually very seriously pushing myself towards going into Law Enforcement, specifically Patrol officer.

Am I being completely retarded?

My motivators are, All these things I do and have an affinity for, but I don't feel like I ever got satisfaction from the Navy. Yes, all the nuke training and qualified to operate nuclear reactors....I can never look at things the same anymore. Electricity is not a mystery, I understood the compressor in my fridge, I look at things with a critical desire I'll always be thankful for...but I joined with the initial desire of just serving my country, being patriotic, helping save the good guys and stop the bad guys (or kill them, whatever it took.)

Instead, I pushed buttons, did paperwork, and read gauges for the entirity of my Naval stint. Not what I had envisioned..though that was probably my own fault. I am looking at Law Enforcement as a direct way to help my community and do a fairly challenging and dangerous job. Wife is not the biggest fan of it, but told me it's my choice and will be here no matter what, so the family is on my side.

But, to the retarded statement, I feel like I might be wasting my talents. I'm trying to spin it to myself that I'm actually bringing a fresh critical eye to what otherwise could be just dirty and mundane work. I've got the situational awareness, I've got the performance under pressure, the memorization abilities of recalling obscure details while being grilled by someone for the information or reason I'm doing what I'm doing.

But what if I'm just underselling myself? Doing a lower paying style job because I'm unwilling or too short-sighted to go for the bigger ones? The tooling repair guy, or the assembly line technician. I am concerned that I'm going down a bad path not neccesarily because being law enforcement is bad (Because it's not, huge respect to the boys in that service), but because I could be otherwise better utilised in other fields.

Any and all feedback would be great, because I have reached out to everyone around me, and all my contacts within the phone and within the workspace of former and current. Now poking the greater group in general (or at least the Reddit savvy ones).