Autism and the military

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I am 16 years old, and I want to join the US Marine Corps after I graduate high school. But I read that people with Asperger's can get rejected by MEPS. And that lying to the MEPS guy is a felony.

I've posted this topic on another forum: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/173830 ... tary_.html

and they said "shut up, and don't tell them, and they won't know." But if I try that strategy, wouldn't they look up my name in some database and find that I have AS?

If you have an official diagnosis, probarbly.

I'd say that it is better to be up front, tell them you have AS, explain the specific (relevant) trait you have and how you work around them.
Overcoming a disability is better than not having the disability in the first place.

Here's what I do to test a situation before entering it:

Phone the recruitment office and use some fake name, tell them you have ASD and ask if that disqualifies you automatically. Ask as many questions as you can think of; then call a different recruitment office and ask them all the same exact questions (to check for the same response and you can feel more sure it's true).

After you have the information, you'll feel more certain about what direction you can go in.

they won't even talk to you.
I tried joining and once they saw my medical records, head recruiter was like nope and walked away.

its a disqualifier, and a few years back the army did recruit a low functioning autistic and got s**t stormed in the media over it. so they usually just say no even if there is a possibility. army wouldn't' even talk to me

sounds like you have it in your medical records, if you didn't then you could join, military use to be find with aspies who were found out after joining later on, but I've heard that some now get kicked out.

i think its funny that private companies can't discriminate against us but the government can.

heard theres the possibility of getting cleared by a higher military doctor like same if you had a bad knee etc. but you'd have to get past the recruiter , past meps? idk even how one gets to the doctor to be cleared, imagine it would have to be a mental specific doctor to.

sadly with them actually cutting back and throwing people out along with recruiting being so high, I don't think they care to bother with hard cases. marines are hard to get into just because you have to wait for guy in position to get promoted or retire. my friends whole family are marines along with my cousin. its tough to get in and stay in.

no harm in calling them though, both me and my recruiter were upset, me cause I wanted to join, him cause probably his quota and time he wasted on me.

I completely understand why any government would not want to recruit someone with AS into their military.

It would not be wise to put anyone with high anxiety and sensory processing issues in a life-or-death situation in which their life and the lives of others depended on them being able to assess and react quickly to multiple threats in the middle of a barrage of noise and enemy fire.

That's not to say there aren't jobs in the military an Aspergian could do perfectly well, or that some individuals with AS wouldn't be perfectly suited to such a predictable, routine, ordered lifestyle, but its understandable why they would consider that a disqualification for soldiers in general.

I guess it's normal to feel like smashing a window with a brick after you learn that you will not be allowed into your job.

ineed.

many aspies in the military who aren't diagnosed or were done so later and they don't care, because they do such a good job(though may have changed in last few years). they however blanket the rest of us diagnosed already as defective.

I mean I get it. they have a guy whos a expert and proven hes good at what he does. then they find out hes a aspie, but they keep him cause they know them. they bar others from joining because they don't know. people feel the unknown. they think we'd snap and just start killing our own troops or something. theres a big misunderstanding of asperger's and HFA.

really fail to see how a social disorder would affect us in military service as clearly it doesn't. might make getting promotions hard though.

if they did lift the ban, it's not something I'd tell other service men, like being gay. they'd see you different and trust you less. hopefully one day it'll change. we'll just now getting around to maybe lettting women serve in combat(officially).

Did anybody read the link to AR-15.com that I posted? (I'm BlitzCo, its my account). What do you think about the suggestions those guys suggested?

Having any form of autism including Asperger Syndrome, is automatic grounds for discharge in the military now.

If the military doctor suspects you have autism, then it is supposed enough to start proceedings for a discharge.

The reason why AS is banned in the military, is due to the lack of empathy, lack of sympathy, the difficulty recognizing emotions and the difficulty connecting to others that people with AS are supposed to have.

I did three years in the Army and I did just fine, although I wouldn't say I was the model soldier as far as following the rules are concerned. I did do a good job, and made my superiors look good so they overlooked a lot of my faults. It's too bad that it's in your medical records because I can almost guarantee that there are quite a bit of undiagnosed Aspies running around in the armed services.

I also doubt that the average Sergeant or Officer could identify or suspect AS unless the behavior is really obvious, or they are being troublesome. They just have too many people to focus on just one individual.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, because there were a lot of times when we were given directions/orders, and I did them, but very reluctantly because they didn't make any sense. Also, there is a lot of hurry up and wait, and sometimes just wait, which can be very frustrating so people with AS.

I don't think it has to do with lack of empathy as it is more of a CYA, the military is still way behind when it comes to psychology, more ignorance than anything, they're just trying to mitigate some "training accident" or the like.

Update: My mom said that I don't have AS on my medical record, so that means I can hide it from the MEPS guy.

I noticed that a lot of stuff in my life is very "hurry up and wait" like in the military.

what email address though?