The military and aspergers

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AspE
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03 Mar 2015, 10:40 pm

[email protected] wrote:

Has anyone or anyone you know with aspergers been excepted into the military. My son is wanting to go into the Marines. I believe he would thrive in a military life.

My friend (autistic and schizotypal) had a mental breakdown, shaved his head, joined the Army, and got sent to Iraq. Believe me, recruiters don't care what you are, as long as you don't have a (recent) criminal record and are reasonably healthy. They will tell you what to say and what to write down. My friend had trouble passing the drug test (for pot). They literally let him take a few drug tests home with him until he was clean.

The thing is, he hated the Army. It's very conformist, and if you can't get along with other guys in a kind of locker room atmosphere, you will suffer greatly. Everyone drinks and does synthetic drugs to avoid drug tests. He was a vegan, and got lots of grief for that. Nothing too bad happened to him in Iraq, other than it being a s**thole. But when he got back he went AWOL. He flew back to Oregon from the East Coast and stayed with me awhile. He turned himself in before it became a more serious offense, and they eventually let him go with a dishonorable discharge.

Also, recruiters lie. They will say lots of things to get you to join, and make all sorts of promises which might or might not happen. If they try to make a case that military experience will translate into job skills, it's not true. If they offer on-line college, that's a joke; the quality is poor and the credits won't transfer.

Lnb1771
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03 Mar 2015, 11:08 pm

Luzhin wrote:

I was in the military during the Vietnam era. While there were things I liked about the military, there were probably more that I did not. Don't really want to get into it but I, personally, would not recommend that anyone on the spectrum join the military. Perhaps it works out for some but I believe the majority would, on average, have a much more difficult time than those not on the spectrum. Just my opinion.

I agree. I had a *horrible* time in the Army particularly when I was stationed in Korea. It was much harder to pass for normal when I wasn't getting adequate rest.
Lydia

Lnb1771
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03 Mar 2015, 11:11 pm

LupaLuna wrote:

Ichinin wrote:

LupaLuna wrote:

Ichinin wrote:

LupaLuna wrote:

No arm forces services in the world will accept any one who is on the spectrum.

Oh really? I am serving in the Swedish military right now as a Civilian specialist.

Yes! but do they know that you are on the spectrum? Most aspie's get in because they don't disclose that information.

Click

I was not questioning whether or not you can do the job. I was questioning whether or not your recruiter knew that you have autism.

I don't know if the recruiter knew but the doctor at the MEPS knew and he just matter-of-factly wrote it in my records. They accepted me regardless.
Lydia

Ichinin
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03 Mar 2015, 11:21 pm

Lnb1771 wrote:

I don't know if the recruiter knew but the doctor at the MEPS knew and he just matter-of-factly wrote it in my records. They accepted me regardless.
Lydia

Congrats.

As said above: It probably depends on what you are going to work with. If you have problems with loud sounds, it may be a really bad idea to sign up to be a tank driver. And also how well functioning you are - wherever you are, you need to be able to work in a group without breaking down or stimming out. If that happens, people - including yourself - can die(!)

Luzhin
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04 Mar 2015, 1:27 am

Lnb1771 wrote:

Luzhin wrote:

I agree. I had a *horrible* time in the Army particularly when I was stationed in Korea. It was much harder to pass for normal when I wasn't getting adequate rest.
Lydia

Very true, lack of rest plays a large part. Also constant noise, constant change, no time/place to be alone and calm down and one that really got me was not understanding the motivations of people around you. I remember one instance where I almost beat another soldier to death (would have but others pulled me off of him) for an incredibly trivial matter.
Nope, the military may work for some on the spectrum but it was a bad fit for me.

Lnb1771
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05 Mar 2015, 3:17 pm

Luzhin wrote:

Lnb1771 wrote:

Luzhin wrote:

I agree. I had a *horrible* time in the Army particularly when I was stationed in Korea. It was much harder to pass for normal when I wasn't getting adequate rest.
Lydia

Yeah, it's a wonder they let me in to be honest. My job was extremely stressful with long hours and no down time. I worked in a kitchen. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

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Emu Egg
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05 Mar 2015, 6:05 pm

He is wanting to be on a tank crew. He has studied the military since he was four, and the ins and outs of tanks since he was 10 or 11. To him everything is about the military. The Marines.

[email protected]
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05 Mar 2015, 6:14 pm

He was diagnosed when he was 14. We do Civil War reenacting. He has made 3rd Corp. Our group is made up of mostly retired military, and that's how they run it. He is in charge of a squad of boys. Guns, cannons, rain, snow, he is in all of it. Our Capt is hard. He was Army. His 1st Sgt was Marines. They are pushing him because they know that he as aspergers, and that he wants to go into the Marines.

Campin_Cat
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05 Mar 2015, 7:16 pm

IMO, your son should go for it!! It was the best years, of my life!! He already has a wonderful foundation, being in the enactment club, with all those veterans----so, it's not like he's going-in, blindly. I would NOT, however, suggest him divulging his diagnosis----hopefully, he can get around it by..... If they ask for his medical records, only give them his GP records. Apparently, though, it doesn't matter, according to other posts, here. When I went-in, I didn't have my diagnosis.

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Ichinin
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06 Mar 2015, 6:22 am

[email protected] wrote:

He is wanting to be on a tank crew. He has studied the military since he was four, and the ins and outs of tanks since he was 10 or 11. To him everything is about the military. The Marines.

Deep knowledge about a subject could be an advantage, but it could also be off-putting for a recruiter. Where i live we have a term called MÖP. Militärt Överintresserad Person = Military Overinterested Person, people who want to become military people for the pure fun of it or because it is cool and they want to show off, the most worrysome thing is that some of them want access to weapons. My advice would be to curb some of that enthusiasm when applying so it will not be considered an unhealthy overfascination with the military. The Swedish Armed Forces generally do not hire MÖP people.

I too were interested in such things when i were smaller, but i never had that a long fixation on anything and my extreme desire to learn moved from subject to subject. I played lots of games amongst others tank games (M1 Tank Platoon) and Red Storm Rising/688 (Submarines) and a whole bunch of flight simulators. The interest has died down sometime during my teens and i moved on to other subjects like Space and Astronomy (i still have a bunch of Astronomy + Sky and Telescope magazines).

Just a piece of friendly advice.

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06 Mar 2015, 6:51 am

The OP has been given some good advice here, to which I will add my contribution. I served in the British Army for 11 years, and would say that there are aspects of military life that are very suitable for a person with autism: it is a highly structured, rule-based environment where each individual has to know exactly what is required of them at all times, and where personal relationships tend not to be very intimate (although a co-operative, comradely attitude is expected).

But it rather depends on your personality and strengths. Plenty of NTs wouldn't fit in, and many who join soon leave or are discharged. Having been in combat myself, if you join a fighting arm (such as the infantry or armour), then you have to have initiative, be able to cope with unexpected, chaotic and potentially fatal situations and make instant judgements upon which your and other people's lives may depend. You also have to cope with some pretty abrasive, ignorant and violent people.

The posters who mentioned the recruiting process make some good points about appearing obsessive. When I joined (I was an officer), I was asked if I liked guns and the idea of killing people. My response - the correct one - was that I wasn't particularly interested in guns, and found the thought of killing someone abhorrent. The modern army won't recruit obsessives or potential psychopaths, such people are incapable of working in a team, which is the basis of military life.

So yes, someone with Asperger's can fit in in the military as long as their personality is compatible with that life and all it demands. They have to be careful which part of the service they join.

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06 Mar 2015, 1:15 pm

[email protected] wrote:

He is wanting to be on a tank crew. He has studied the military since he was four, and the ins and outs of tanks since he was 10 or 11. To him everything is about the military. The Marines.

How well does he handle stress?
That's really hard to tell up to this point because there is no stress like that induced in basic training/boot camp. Add that to the fact that during the most stressful part of that training, the early part, there will be NO place to get away and chill out even for a few minutes. I thought I would go crazy but I made it.

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GoldTails95
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06 Mar 2015, 1:25 pm

Sethno wrote:

LupaLuna wrote:

Just make sure that the recruiter doesn't know that your son has AS, or that's grounds for disqualification. No arm forces services in the world will accept any one who is on the spectrum.

Not entirely true.

There was a case in the States back in '06 where an Army recruiter got an autistic kid who wasn't terribly high functioning to sign up, and the mother protested that they had no right to sign up a "disabled" kid.

The military insisted that the boy came across as "all right" and they refused to drop the matter and insisted his enlistment was legit. They even claimed they didn't need to see his medical records, even tho' their own rules said they have to have all pertinent medical info on file about a recruit.

The kid was supposed to report for duty in four months, and the parents had no idea what more they could do. (The kid hadn't even known there was a war going on, and the recruiter had set him up to be in the most dangerous job the army had.)

In '09 the U.S. Marines likewise allowed another young autistic man to enlist. In this case the recruiter actually picked the guy up at the group home he lived at...a group home "for the mentally disabled"...and brought him to the recruitment center to sign up.

Obviously, we're again not talking about someone who was very high functioning.

After being pushed thru bootcamp, the kid ended up locked up, charged by the military with being a disciplinary problem, and facing court marial. Can't imagine how that happened.

In the earlier case, the Army finally backed off and let the kid out of his "contract" (which I'd have to guess was illegal to begin with), and in the case involving the Marines, the Marines actually began investigating the guys who'd enlisted the kid, and they ended up facing possible criminal charges at the time of the article I found.

In both cases, the issue seemed to be recruiters who had "quotas" to meet, and they didn't care how they did it.

Yes, it is possible for an autistic person, even someone who's not high functioning, to end up in the military, with the expected disasters resulting.

To add to Sethno's post, the 2nd case of an autistic guy in the marines was under guardianship of his grandmother (his parents were drug addicts) and has scored a traditional IQ of 70. On top of that guy's disabilities, he was addicted to child ponography, was a shoplifter in his teens, and was in a lock down psych center for youth. Seems to me like your kid has not gotten into that much trouble. So he will be good. In the end it is the very own individual and not the diagnosis that determines if he will do well or not. This especially applies to autism spectrum because it is very rare that there will be someone else just like me in terms of autism symptoms and functioning.
With the first case, it was said he had moderate to servers autism but the first case could be actually high functioning and the description was probably a lie by the parents to "protetct" him from himself.

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ASPartOfMe
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08 Mar 2015, 1:22 pm

The IDF’s Unit 9900, faced with the Sisyphean task of deciphering satellite images, has begun employing volunteer soldiers on the autism spectrum who have proven adept at decoding the pictures. For the two ex-Mossad agents who started the program, it’s a ‘win-win’ situation

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rollermonkey
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08 Mar 2015, 10:33 pm

I did 20 years in the Navy.

It was NOTHING like I expected. The regimented lifestyle or mindset doesn't always exist. Someone earlier brought up surviving in a locker room environment, I think that's very apt. Promotion and discipline in the military are very much affected by how much people like you, and 'fake it 'til you make it' will only get you so far.

The USMC is probably the worst candidate for someone on the spectrum to do well out of the 4 (5) branches of US Military service. The level of stress put on those guys in boot camp is ridiculous. They break people and fit them to a mold. From what little I know about AS/ASD, that doesn't usually work to well for us.

I was in trouble over and over in my career, and my promotion stalled out before I was even at ten years because as you get to higher levels, interpersonal skills/relationships are more important than actually being good at the job.

jjbenge17
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24 Mar 2015, 6:52 pm

So what would be the right steps to joining the Army. I have been talking with a doctor, and she said I can.. I have also done a lot of research on if some on can join the army with Aspergers it looks like it is a possibility!

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