Jealousy

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IMHO the military is a largely hostile place for us on the spectrum who are not ultra-high-functioning. I felt like I was in a prison the whole time.

IMHO the military is a largely hostile place for us on the spectrum who are not ultra-high-functioning. I felt like I was in a prison the whole time.
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maybe NTs also felt like the military was a prison.

and yeah i ain't ultra high functioning.

and it is quickly getting much worse.

and my Axis V: Global Area Functioning was never that great to being with

but seriously though.

was it better to be a homeless civilian, or in the Army?

when you were in the Army, was it active duty or reserves?

what was your MOS?

how many years did you serve?

were you enlisted or an officer?

Uncle Sam's Army gave me 3 meals a day, and a bunk in a crowded barracks, which was a room full of 50 other smelly noisy rowdy guys. later on they split the barracks into 4 lower-enlisted man rooms. sergeants got a room to themselves, called BEQ [NCO Bachelor Enlisted Quarters].

active. we called the reservists/NGers "chairborne strangers." but they were treated better than we were. they called us active duty full-timers, "losers."
MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] 91D10, "operating room specialist/central material supply specialist. it has since changed to another name/occupational code. 91 referred to the medical field, D to operating room specialist, 10 to ranks under sergeant.

4 years too long, I got rooked by my recruiter, the rest of the GIs I served with got 3 year enlistments except for gullible me. I was double-screwed in that also my IRR [Individual Ready Reserve] obligation was 4 years instead of 3. I just barely avoided getting called back up for desert storm. anyways, I took a month's worth of terminal leave at the end of my enlistment.

lower-enlisted, I was an E4 which at the time was called a "Spec. 4." later they dropped the 4. anybody who kept their nose clean got the promotion to E4 in 26 months. I was promoted after everybody else. I worked in a military hospital in the operating room/central material supply, reprocessing used surgical instruments, relief-scrubbing in the operating room while the more experienced techs went to lunch. basically I gowned/gloved, passed instruments and supplies back and forth from the surgeons. I graduated at the bottom of my class as I was utterly inept. this would not have been the MOS i'd have freely chosen, but because of my poor ASVAB scores I was offered only this or 11B, infantry, I would rather have been a 71 [forgot the letter, a hospital administration specialist/records], 91F [psychiatric aide] or a computer operations specialist. but they didn't offer that to me even when I asked. it was at the time, "take it or leave it." I figured at least in the operating room, that nobody was shooting at me.

Aunt Blabby:

the MEPS issues DQs for the following conditions:

autism (diagnosed by neuopsychiatrist)
obsessive compulsive disorder (diagnosed by Dept of Rehab)
depression (prozac)
anxiety (ativan)
got over 6 months of counseling

and that's just among diagnoses received thus far.

waivers take up to a year for the Dept of Defense to accept or reject.

find it hard to imagine DoD would allow someone in with 5+ waivers.

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having said that, i am totally obsessed with the military. love going over the Leather Neck forum. love going over the Service Academy forum.

the military seems like it has a purpose and meaning.

but, that is just the opinion of a civilian.

so the reason why i did not join the military ain't b/c i am cowardly or lazy. even though yes i am cowardly and lazy.

it's b/c the military would not take me even if i applied.
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besides, whatever. been obsessed with the military since age 18 or so. and 34 now.

so if i were to have gone enlisted at age 18, then four years active duty and six years reserve. then back to being a scuzzy civilian. which i am now. a scuzzy civilian.

civilian at age 28. unless of course reenlistment.

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if i were to join the military, would pick the MOS: admin, finance, engineer, intelligence, utilities

your timing, unfortunately, is unfortunate, this is where my timing was unintentionally better, in that all the things lined up at the same time- deep recession, drastic military buildup, shortage of bodies. so they waivered [and quickly] my psychiatric [counseling for several years, various issues] and medical [various]. if the army wasn't desperate at the time for bodies, I would have been turned away just like the other services did. they passed some people that should never have been passed, ones that eventually caused trouble for them later on. I was thinking since the orange-haired menace said he wants to drastically enlarge our military, that it might be good timing for somebody who wanted in. back when I was in, there were new recruits who were older than me at the time [23], one was 37.

under Trump, the timing to process at MEPS could be "As Good As it Gets."

the military has quotas and limits for age and weight.

until recently, women were not allowed to do infantry or combat engineering.

just last year, the military lifted its ban on trans recruits.

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the military is a major commitment. much bigger than a civilian job. a civilian job could fire you. the military works under its own legal system. going AWOL from work is illegal and could land someone in jail.

even if the contract is closed, it only specifies the field, not the precise job title, of the MOS. and, in any event, jobs are assigned based on the need of the military. civilian jobs don't do that.

if the military made me a cook, then i would respond badly.

likewise i am very bad a functioning on insufficient sleep. and the military does not offer a lot of sleep.

and i don't know if i would go as E4 or O1.

yes i do have a degree.

but it is Cognitive Science, 2.1 gpa. and that ain't competitive for OTS or OTC.

likewise, PFT scores not good. zero push ups. running and sit ups barely decent.

Combat Fitness Test. athletically awkward. bad at sprinting

and i would be paranoid about getting raped, b/c i am trans.

likewise i have a really hard time adjusting to living situations. going from civilian to military would be a nightmare.

Failure to Adapt

Entry Level Separation

Administrative Discharge

Dishonorable Discharge

under no circumstances could i stay in the military for all four years without getting discharged.

and then when getting an ELS, the recruit can't just leave immediately. the recruit has to out process, which takes a long time. during that time, the recruit has to do dirty work in the barracks. according to some articles, the fastest way out of Boot Camp or Basic Training is graduation.

furthermore i am very bad around noises. screaming drill instructors.



in other words i am cowardly and lazy.

big deal

that ain't illegal.

i'm cowardly and lazy and scatterbrained also. somehow I never got into serious trouble during those years.

i'm cowardly and lazy and scatterbrained also. somehow I never got into serious trouble during those years.
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okay, but every company commander and drill sergeant is different.

what was the biggest punishment someone you knew in the military got, and what was the punishment for?

what were the biggest problems that you had to put up with in the military?

how was the racism/sexism/homophobia?

one guy busted back to E-nothing for failure to obey a command/direct order [to take a pee test] resulted in 2 years in the CCF plus bad conduct discharge. I don't think they made him break big rocks into little rocks, but that still existed when I was in. mostly it was busts of a grade or several plus bar to re-up. one battalion command sergeant major got busted to E6 and the exit, at least they let him retire, this was for favoritism in terms of letting some of his troops avoid U/A. the command sergeant major of the army, i forgot his name, got busted to E8 but allowed to retire, after several politically connected female NCOs accused him of harassing them. lots of UA busts plus insubordination, punching out OICs/NCOICs. one guy tried to kill his NCO when he found out he was pronging his wife, the cuckold got hard time/hard labor, the NCO got nothing but a smith & Wesson-style ventilation, I had to scrub-in on the bastard's surgery, he was built tough as a tank which saved his life, he was swiss-cheesed with large-caliber bullet holes that somehow managed to miss vitals. one guy failed a barracks inspection with a new top, so the top made an example of him and made him sleep in a pup tent out in the yard way. one fella in the combat engineering battalion [very strict] across the highway from us, had a loose button on his uniform during a formation in-ranks inspection, the first sergeant ripped the guys button's off, screamed blue murder at him, dropped him for punitive pushups until he collapsed from exhaustion, ordered him to report to the company/CQ every 4 hours for 16 hours a day [every hour on weekends], for the next two weeks, with his duffle bag full of his GI issue, unpack and pack it, button and unbutton every uniform article. i prolly had to do as many pushups [they called that "smoking the private"] as my whole squad, in basic training, "for being stupid." i did lots of KP [Kitchen Police] in basic because i couldn't march during drill and ceremony the way they wanted me to, due to unequal leg length which made me appear to hop or lope every other step.
as for the sexism/racism/homophobia, it was a thing but sometimes in unexpected ways. rank was respected above all, if you had the stripes or metal, you got respect or else. if you had stripes or metal and failed to get respect, both parties were punished from above. one c/o put his troops down in a dry stream bed, not aware that a storm was coming, and they got washed away. he was relieved of his command not because of that goof but because he lost the respect of his men. in my permanent party station I was the only white face in a sea of black faces. they did not like me from the git-go and did what they could to "freeze me out." they would repeatedly try to sabotage my work, they would take behind my back while I was within earshot in the same room, call me various names, bear false witness against me, steal stuff from me, etc. about the only commandment they didn't break was "thou shalt not murder" but they did murder psyches with malice aforethought. the section chief was white and he abetted them. he was a homophobe. his boss, a major, also black, read them all the riot act and made them stop. the section chief then retired. the black GIs were all over the white female recruits. otherwise there wasn't much race-mixing socialization. I saw gay folk get chaptered out, I think it was called a chapter 15. even high-ranking gays got the boot, one was a lt. colonel, but he was unmistakable. I never admitted to it, but they all knew somehow, but they couldn't prove it so I was not kicked out but was barred from re-enlistment. one virulent homophobe [i strongly suspect he was self-denying] did what he could to rattle me and get me in trouble, he wrote nasty stuff on my barracks door, i complained directly to his NCO who made him stop it. one of my tech school instructors was fraternizing with a female recruit [one of his charges] that he had the hots for, he got busted when his command caught wind of it. granted, this was in the early 80s. a lot may have changed since then, especially with the LGBT thing. boy was I glad when I could "Echo Tango Samsonite" (get out).
i hope that answered your questions.

Aunt Blabby:

yes you answered my questions.

thank you very much.

short fat bald ugly man

prego

Do you have ambivalent feelings about the military--or is it all
bad?

my experience was not especially good, but I do not begrudge the experience of others for whom the military was a net positive experience in their lives. but everybody I knew on a personal basis [even many of my bosses] disliked it as much as I did. there were other military posts where the experience was markedly less picayune.

Thanks.

^^^^ prego

auntblabby, if you could get through what you got through, you can get through anything.

I'd be honoured to have you as my drill sergeant.