Aspies and the Military...

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So I will be enlisting in the Military in the coming months and am looking forward to it but am also really worried. As with most of you I will get sensory overload when there are too many noises at once or a large amount of people talking and have been trying to overcome that. And I also take medication which I am trying to get off in time to join. But i have a question for other Aspies in the Military, How do you guys do in it? How is the pressure for you guys? and what else can you tell me? All this thinking about it is making me very depressed and I have nobody to ask about this as I don't know anybody who is an Aspie and in the Military in real life...

Also if it is needed to know I am going into the ARMY National Guard.

Thank you
Caleb

I only know I would never have made it in the military in any branch. From the drill Sargent yelling and screaming in boot camp to the fear of not processing stimuli fast enough in a firefight and getting shot or blown up. There have been some postings here by military Aspergians, but not too many. I haven't seen one in quite some time, but its not a subject that comes up every day. I do recall one guy mentioning how much he liked military life because of all the strict adherence to routine and order, I can certainly see how that would be a plus.

The Aspergian attention to detail could be a huge advantage in an organization that's big on specialization - if you get into a niche that fits with a special interest, you could do very well. One of my best friends in HS was not a spectrumite as far as I know, but was a tad slow academically and had a speech impediment and had been socially ostracized for it. He was always a shade tree mechanic, learned a lot about cars from his Grandfather, and went into the Marines right after graduation. They made him a helicopter mechanic and he was in 7th heaven.

I was like in a daze throughout Basic Training in the USN in 1970, but being "second in command" (Assistant Petty Officer 1st Class) behind our company's RCPO (Recruit Chief Petty Officer) circumstantially placed me in an easy-ride spot where I could survive it. After that, I only had trouble with a great fear of getting called out for not saluting properly and of getting stuck on a carrier with far too many people crammed in together out at sea.

Basic training is a place where they weed out the ones who might break in combat. It is designed to stress you out, but not more than you can handle. Just remember not to take it personally. The instructors will treat your platoon the same as the one before it and the same as the one after it. They say the same things and pick on people the same way, month after month. If you get confused, do what everyone else is doing. They did make me a road guard so I would not march with my unit as much because of my awkward gait. It is rough, but it does end. You will be a better person from the experience.

Thanks guys, I think I can handle the pressure of Boot Camp as I know not to take the Instructor hurling insults at me personally. I just am not sure about like if I am called out to Afghanistan or something. Like if I would be able to handle that.

Only you know your limits. You're thinking about being sent out way too soon. Right now, I am sure you cannot handle it. But, once you get trained, you will be fine material.

I am glad you want to serve your country though.

Being deployed is a life changing experience. The world is a rough and mean place. You will be there trying to make things better for others, and you may end up seeing things you wish you hadn't. You and your friends will be fighting for the innocent against the worst evils man can commit. Don't take it personally that you can't change the world, or undo the evil that is done. Just be proud of doing the best you can.

You should be calm enough when things get rough because of the training you get, and you will be with your friends.

I just finished eight years and got an honorable discharge some months ago from the Army Reserves, which means basically Active Duty every other year nowadays.

I wouldn't worry too much-- I had to get through it without even knowing I was aspie, which I only found out last month!

They do issue you hearing protection and nice Wiley Xs if you are sensitive to light and sound. They might praise your attention to detail, ability to quickly memorize things, being a stickler for following rules, honesty, etc. The structure can be useful for some aspies, I have read.

If I had known the deal earlier, I would have joined 20 years ago and become a linguist warrant officer (special interest alert!)

But I joined not for fun but out of duty, and I counted every second till my contract expired or I did, whichever came first. Let me not scare you--- my comrades loved it and were surprised I hadn't joined for fun. For me, it was absolutely awful, but only my civilian friends and family knew as I kept up professional demeanor.

You will also learn a lot about .... neurotypical behavior, how to act and talk the talk more mainstream, and all that.

Aspies are good at doing what they're told, and boot camp is good for that since the D.S. explains what to do beforehand and then has you do it.

If you mobilize to a foreign country, learning the culture is no weirder than learning NT or Army culture!

When are you leaving for I.E.T.?

I wish you the best. I'm getting too old for such and am glad others can carry on the standard.

I joined out of duty, but I ended up loving my job. Practice is much harder than actual war, but war is for keeps. I had to retire because I got to old to keep up. I found out I was autistic after I retired.

I did about 14 years of martial arts, and am considering joining a PMC as a field armorer, post getting a gunsmithing license.

All I can tell you is to know what you are fighting for. Know that you are willing to die for it. And know if you cant put your entire heart into it, than there is always another way to make it happen

You won't be able to join, unless you lie on the medical, and that itself is something you don't want to do.

A diagnosed ASD will make you fail the medical.

you sure about that?

you sure about that?

I tried joining the navy, but i couldn't handle the basic training.
not so much the yelling and screaming, or the hard exercise, but the constant confusion and daze i was living in. Like i couldn't quite get the knack of marching... ever. I got better at it, but never enough so to get it as perfect as the rest of them. I remember i loved being a road guard because it was so easy . And bed inspections. Provided you had a competent bunkmate to help out with laying out the sheets, bed inspections were pretty smooth sailing. But keeping all the clothes perfectly folded and such drove me crazy though i was better at it than alot of my peers, and i was always confused as to what went exactly where inside the bunk-locker. Consequentially i kept failing my locker inspections because there'd be stuff out of place. & i absolutely hated being part of the roving night watches. Especially if it was one of the early morning shifts, because we'd spend all the early night hours after lights out working out and such, and reading our letters, and most importantly, taking our turns at the few ironing boards ironing our clothes and putting in the appropriate creases, polishing our boots to the approved level of shininess, and then if we had an early morning night watch shift, we consequentially got little to no sleep for that night. And during the night watches you were supposed to log things that were out of place or things that happened and i never really knew where everything was supposed to be in the first place as far as some stuff went. & then the neighboring RDC's liked to make surprise inspections when we were off balance in the middle of the night and contest whichever security shift was on duty for that 2-hour period. & i was just unfortunate enough to be that unlucky guy on duty a couple of times. Female RDC's were the worst. Straight up b*****s. Usually when one person got in trouble, they punished all of us... with excruciating exercise. Doesn't sound tough, but wait til you've been doing "8-count bodybuilders" for about 2-3 hours straight with no breaks. People start collapsing, and some just screw up because they start slipping in the puddles of their own sweat on the floor, and then we have to start that set all over again.... most divisions had two petty officers and one chief for their RDC, we had 2 chiefs and one petty officer. We did alot of note-taking and memorization, yelling til we were hoarse, and the chiefs had some hilarious stories to tell. I never did get to hear the chief's story about the captain's daughter and i sort of regret that. Some days it got so cold that we would go into the bathroom and use the hot air hand-dryer and blow it down our shirtfronts for warmth because even wearing our sweats wasn't warm enough indoors. cleaning the barracks was also a huge chore, i usually opted for sweeping or window-washing because i liked using the squeegee. The best day of the week was Sunday, because going to chapel (they gave us nifty cheap crosses to add to our dog tags if we wanted) and the few hours during that day aside from it were pretty much the only free time we had to just sit down (we weren't allowed to lie down, we had to at least be sitting. Napping was definitely not allowed) and be lazy, but most took the opportunity to polish their boots anyways. We were allowed to go to the store only once in a great while to buy more toiletries and such if we needed them (shaving cream, razor blades, extra PT shorts, laundry detergent, etc.) but no candy or soda or snacks allowed. We were pretty much on a strict diet. The closest thing we got to soda was Powerade at mealtimes. Oddly enough, breakfast cereal was available at every meal . After about a month in, i started breaking down, i just didn't care about anything anymore. Then they found out i had Aspergers Syndrome because i was talking to the chaplain about it, pretty soon they had me in to see a psychologist, who also slapped a generic "depression" diagnosis on me as well as confirming Aspergers, and promptly had me signing paperwork to discharge me. Not surprising that basic training suicide rates are comparatively high. A few kids hung themselves with their bedsheets. Though i remember seeing one kid who was also being discharged for medical reasons 'cause he just up and died in his sleep. The RDC thought he was just pretending to stay asleep to shirk his responsibility at first but then they promptly realized and got him down to medics in time to revive him. But he has a pacemaker now and his brainfunction's not what it was anymore. He seemed really sketchy all the time afterward .

it's the reason i got booted out

Sorry I don't know.

Good luck and keep safe.