Ever joined the Military and succeeded? Failed?

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I tried to get into the army when I was 18. I wanted to go into the Signals Corps.
I failed the psych test. Couldn't get into the Reserves either.
And if they had told me why, a lot of what I have been through in the last ten years might never have happened.

I was in the U.S Army from 1/21 to 2/24 of 2003. I was unable to cope with the military life. Specially with following and understanding orders. It was rather hard for me to get out and lieutenant commander and drill sergeants gave me no slack. I was treated unkindly after I voiced that I could no longer take it. It was a very traumatizing ordeal and still not quite got over it.

I am looking at my Certificate of Release from Active Duty...

Separation - Discharge - Does not say on it but was a Chapter 14 Administrative Discharge
I refuse any sort of official diagnoses and medical help. I was desperate to get home and just wanted the quickest way out.

Separation Authority AR 635-200, PARA 5-17

I oncewent to a Navy recruiter Ill say morelater. 10Q.

I enlisted in the US Air Force in June of 1986. I made it through Basic - barely - and lucked out by getting a On-Job Training assignment as a computer programmer at HQ SAC. (When I enlisted, there weren't any slots available at the programmer tech school, and my biggest hope at the time was that one would open up - little did I realize that the two semesters of COBOL I'd taken would be my ticket to the Big Time!) While I was there, I got on well with the officers in my office, by dint of creating software that my predecessor had told them was "impossible". (Little did I know that was going to cause trouble with the Assistant NCOIC, who was trying to play office politics around me, and was getting shown up by my mad programming skillz - but things got better when he got transferred to a NATO base in Italy...) In '89, as a Senior Airman (E-4), I was offered the opportunity to go to NCO Prep, but they made the mistake of making it sound like a choice. I turned them down - I knew I wasn't going to reenlist, and it seemed dishonest to study for something I wasn't going to be. Next thing I knew, I was chatting with a psych, who told me I was BPD, possibly even sociopathic, because of my "flatness of affect". By December, I was out with an honorable discharge, and an enlistment category of 3-B. Somehow, that got me out of the four years of inactive reserve I was supposed to serve next.

Had I known that COBOL was a dead language outside the AF, I might have stayed in - the routine wasn't that bad, as long as I remembered to press my uniform after washing it, and I even had regular hours - none of this getting out of bed at oh-dark-thirty to run miles through the brush, like the Army has to put up with! Ah well, a bit late now...

Hi, all.

I'm looking for people with military background. If you know how this stuff works, please visit "I live in hell..." http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt96283.html

Depends.

The military is a very rigid and predicatable structure - in that sense it can be easier for an Aspie.

On the other hand there is a demand for rigid conformity: everyone alike. Low tolerance for differences.

Depends then really on the amount of "space" free from intrusion one is able to create.

- Those who enlist have very little manoeuvering room. Always being intruded upon. Those any different often "pecked to death." Very, very difficult.

- Officer corps (line) has more room, but a strict demand for conformity. Very Difficult.

- Staff officers are generally more broadly schooled, have advanced degrees. Education brings with it exposure to diversity, and therefore (generally) more of a tolerance is developed. Likely be able to do better in this league - with hard work at "pretending to be NT." Difficult.

In general, those with Aspergers are not naturally suited for a career in the military. It can be done, but it takes a toll.
An academic center such as a university where creativity and differences - and original thought - are not only tolerated but welcomed is much more the fertile ground.

Been there done that...prefer to not talk about the details.

Ironically it all ended with an honorable discharge...mostly due to the mercies of my chain of command and a JAG officer who pointed out that technically I was eligible for the honorable discharge.

It's not worth the paper it's printed on because my in service experience isn't something I want to go into and disclosing it only opens more cans of worms than anything else.

Overall, the problem was part AS, part me. A painful childhood, running away from my problems, seeking a place I would belong and then the trauma of feeling like I wasn't accepted.

The AS diagnosis didn't even exist back then, so nobody would have known what my problem(s) was(were).

In hindsight, I'd like to think that the military could have been a place for me, if I picked the right line of work and they did a few accommodations so that I would have the emotional reinforcement that I was really wanted by my unit, but that's all water under the bridge.

I am a junior Officer in the Air Force who works in Contracting. I love my job because it allows me to delve into regulations and spend a lot of time working alone on getting contracts awarded. My job is difficult, however, when I need to deal with people personally and in close quarters. I have no knack for small talk and it is difficult for me to strike up conversations about anything other than the task at hand. This can be a bit difficult as much of what I will be doing later in my career involves this kind of personal interaction.

I also find it difficult to socialize with the other officers of my grade. Quite frankly, I find much of what they do to be boring (drinking at the Officers Club, drinking at the bar, drinking at house parties). I know this might possibly handicap me in my future career (most high level officers know or know-of each other and this type of socialization goes a long way towards that).

I have not been diagnosed with Aspergers but it seems to explain much of my behavior and I had one of those "Eureka" moments when I first read its symptoms. My question, has anyone here found a way to balance the mandatory socializing inherent in the military with their career and interests? This might apply more to Officers since we are expected to pal around with each other. I am interested in any comments.

Cheers.

i remember at ft benning, ga, before being assigned to a unit for infantry school, i was called to a briefing with a lot of other tall (i'm 6 feet tall) rather quiet intellectual slackers to talk to a tall, rather quiet, intellectual-type liaison for a unit called "the old guard."


f___ infantry school. the best and worst time of my life.

few months later i found myself at ft myer, va. doing funerals, vip security (standing by doors for important people), and hanging out in undisclosed locations with a full company of infantryman, locked and loaded, around dc while g-dub made speeches that were determined to raise threat levels.


i lost it after about a year at ft myer and went on vacation. i had a few specific reasons (one of them turns 4 this july) but ironically being afraid of deployment, war, or having a hard time doing army stuff weren't involved in the decision. i loved the training environment. i excelled at everything that had anything to do with thinking (that actually involves pushups too once you figure it out) and at my best i could run 2 miles in 11 and a half minutes. i qualified expert on a mechanical zero (no sight adjustments) and actually rocked an m14 as a designated marksman.

i hate the army. i hate the old guard more.

ideas and institutions run and ruined by people who, simply put, don't care.

i've known honor guard escorts to wear dress uniforms to funerals cut up under the coat so that they are actually naked from mid-thigh to neck under the jacket (suspenders are magic). i've known a tomb guard who wore a vibrating toy while doing ceremonies at the tomb of the unknown soldier. i eventually seperated the same day as a guy who got kicked out for stealing cigarettes from the class-6 (liquor store) while he was on duty as an usher at the chapel. he went to the store while the family was inside having the service, didn't have his wallet, and just stole the smokes.

i got to play with an HK xM8 (should have been an M8 but it got shot down) modular weapon kit that replaces every weapon from the subcompact mp5 to the m249 SAW. the kit includes a long, heavy, barrel for sharpshooter/squad automatic weapon varient, a standard barrel for standard infantry rifle varient, shortened barrel for compact or subcompact varient, and had a full, folding, collapsable buttstock as well as a buttcap, which, combined with the short barrel, could make the weapon fit in your pocket.

you can actually see what the weapon looks like by googling it. it's also what the soldiers in x-men 3 are actually carrying.



anyways, i thought i'd get out by being awol for over a month and turning myself in. my best friend (really one of my only real friends) had gotten out of the army about a year prior by doing that.

i stayed gone for 2 months. then i turned myself in at ft sill, ok. ...only to be told that i wasn't awol and flown back to ft myer. it was tough after that, but 4 months later i was free.


i think the army system is the perfect environment for aspies.

i think the problem lies in the human component. any army is a product of not only its leadership but also its warrior base. there's not much you can do to make sense of life when you're forced, by a peergroup, to ignore logic and ethics.

the problem i found was this:
officers don't have any interest in talking to a joe.
squad leaders are privates who reenlisted.
platoon sergeants are squad leaders who reenlisted.
first sergeants are soldiers who have been assimilated completely.
sergeants major are first sergeants who were probably making too much sense to be allowed to remain at the company level.




in the end, it was the culture i couldn't deal with.

I did ok in the Air Force. I had a major meltdown in basic while doing that KP thing. One of the other guys calmed me down to the point I could function for the rest of the day, while the others just made a bit of fun at me. Bastards.

Tech school was a breeze because I already knew most of the material due to a little obsession.

Out in the field, I did well and kept to myself. I found barracks living tolerable, except on Friday after work, when everybody in the building would blast the multitude of stereos with the latest Van Halen record.

I got transferred to a GLCM unit, and had to go to Arizona for training. Even training there was a bit of a breeze, except for the "Army" training. That involved Army weapons training and tactics.

Off to West Germany I go, and I am sooooo bored. The job basically was to sit in a building and wait for war. Once a month, we went to a German base and did training for a week. The training was sitting in a foxhole and wait to get attacked.

I was downsized after the first Gulf war-too many Staff Sergeants in my field.

I think it helped me in that most of the time I knew what was to happen. I learned to tolerate most of the BS and maybe that's a good thing.

One thing; I did have a couple friends through that ordeal, and I kinda miss them. They seemed understand my oddness.

I have no military experience, but this makes perfect sense to me.

You know, I actually thought about going into the air force after 9-11, but continued with college instead. I still may do it yet.

I was a army airborne parachute rigger from 95-02. Did good as long as were on mission, off time envolved to much drinking.

I always picture someone with AS going Pvt. Pyle from Full Metal Jacket in basic training.

Interesting read here on individuals with AS in the military: http://www.aspires-relationships.com/ar ... litary.htm

Thanks for the link suggestion, ignisfatuus. The section on Problems with Teamwork fit me perfectly. I joined the Canadian Army in time for Korea, and was one of 3 graduates out of 39 students that started a nine month long Radio Mechanic course. This was a perfect occupation for a loner with AS, who was definitely NOT a team player, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other two successful candidates were also Aspies. I did enjoy some aspects of the military, eventually receiving a commission, but made no close friends. The best thing about the military for me was the opportunity to escape a very unhappy home life, and to learn a profession. I continued working in communications engineering and management until retiring in 1994, solely as a result of my military service in the early 1950's.