Aspies in the military

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Any aspies here in the military, or have had previous service?

I assume anyone here would have found out they had AS afterwards, as I did. I don't think they'd let me in if I told my Marines recruiter, "by the way, I have Asperger's."

Though I do have to say that it helped me out a lot in my personal and social development. It forced me (literally) to socialize with others in one way or another, even though I was known as the socially awkward goofball of the unit.

Though it would have helped if I knew I had it while I was still in the service, so I would know exactly how I needed to 'compensate' for my shortcomings, rather than just sit around and wonder what the heck was wrong with me.

Though in the end it turned out for the best; it's paying for my college right now, so I'm better off than I'd be if I never enlisted.

I want to thank you very much for doing
what you are doing in the service.

I was in the army for eight years. I know that feeling, the one where you know you're a little off and everyone knows you're a little off but you can't figure out just what is wrong.

I wasn't diagnosed with AS, I just found out about it a short time ago, and I'm almost forty now. I'm still trying to get the VA to give me a test, but naturally I'm still waiting for paperwork to go through before I can even make my first appointment. It's been a month since I submitted my paperwork, and they told me it would be two weeks before I heard from them. Pretty typical bureaucratic stuff, I guess.

My life could have been a lot worse, I am certain. I've had a pretty decent life. But looking back now, all the time I spent trying to use rational faculties to suss out meaning in my interactions with people. It just feels like wasted time. And I spent the last few years of my life depressed, because I felt like I was stuck. And since I can't read people, I spent the last decade telling myself I couldn't trust anybody, and I didn't want to go to work for somebody who had the power to fire me for reasons beyond my understanding or control. Now that I have a much better idea of what's going on with me, I think I can actually get my life back on track again.

I have a few years left to use my G.I. Bill, so I'm putting some thought into what I want to do with it. I don't know what I'll do exactly, but I'm feeling a little pressure now to use it before the opportunity is gone.

I hope you find some friends and support here, like I did. Coming here to WP is one of the most positive things I have done in recent memory.

I would really like to be in the military - it's been my aspie obsession for years.
Apparently it's pratically impossible for dXed aspies to get in.

I have been wondering about social problems, though.
I have been in mariners for 6 years - totally not even close to the same as the military, however, we frequently sail, spend time together, camp etc...
I am usually quite isolated there, and sometimes ridiculed for my weird/antisocial behaviour.
One time, the girls started calling me "freak" - although not meant in a mean way, just in a factual sort of a manner.
Is that the kind of thing you get in the military?

And I'm sorry to ask, but I am dying to know (sorry, horrible wording) which units you were in, and what your experiences in the military were?
You don't have to reply - this is probably personal.

I think that some aspiness could turn out to be an advantage because some of the most confusing aspects of social interactions doesn't really apply during service.
I served as a tank commander,
A job well suited to a seemingly detached and cool person who tend to "feels" systems and machine much more intuitively than people,
I was considered the top gunner and was assigned to demonstrate tank commanding to fresh recruiters and visiting generals and during combats i was praised for my cool conduct under fire
But
My autistic traits were pretty much exposed to any one to see ( there is no intimacy in the army and there is no way to hide)
Strangely enough people liked me for it
I was the "freak" ,the unexpected,"the craziest soldier ever" as my commanders used to tell me repeatedly,
so what ?
Any group of people need someone like that and people respected and loved me quite a lot for my weirdness
Especially when it contrasted so much with my professionalism at handling the machines and above the average fighting skills
/
BTW
I took part in some of the toughest clashes the IDF has ever known at the 73 war during of which most of my unit were wiped out
those who survived adopted many AS like traits,
long stares at nothing
avoidance of human contacts
Selective mutism
...
I wonder why is that and if there any connection between PTSD and Autism ?

i was in the army decades before AS [as a subject] was widely understood. but everybody around me always knew that i was not normal- everybody 'cept for me, 'cause i thought everybody else was abnormal. i didn't get the fact that i was the abnormal one until i got dx'ed in '04. then everything started to make sense, and everything became sadder at the same time. before then i was angry all the time. now i just want to go to heaven, and am just biding my time until then.

anyways, i could tell that several people in my recruitment group had AS-traits.but if my recruiter let on to anybody that he knew something was wrong with me and some of the others, he would have had to cast us aside, but that would have cost him a recruitment goal and possibly a promotion, which he got shortly after he enlisted the group which i was in.
i was never "specialist so and so" - i was always just called my first name, or specialist [my first name] which nobody else got addressed in similar manner. everybody thought i was just a civilian in disguise. i never mouthed off, i always diligently did my job but the goof-offs got treated with respect and i just got marginalized. i strongly suspect my bosses [an E6 and E7] were aspies. they coped by being angry all the time. or at least giving the impression they were angry all the time. they were high-functioning to a fault. i feared and loathed them. it was like they could see clear through me, and that they knew what i was thinking. they liked to remind people under them that they believed their #1 job was to weed out the unfit. i feel in retrospect that they were overcompensating. somebody on high should have weeded THEM out. i wish i knew back then i was aspie, then i would have had a much clearer picture of what was going on. i was so in the dark back then. and now.

i was in a medical corp unit, a hospital operating room/CMS suite. luckily i was able to avoid line unit duty, which another person in my unit was forced to move to. i would not have survived one minute in such a unit. luck of the draw, that one was. i originally signed up for MOS 91g10- social worker - can anybody imagine what a disaster that would have been! but somebody changed that before i was aware, and my next choice [91d10, "operating room specialist"] was selected for me. at the time i was in, it was in between campaigns so there was a suspension of the GI bill so i didn't get any real ed bennies out of it, as something they called VEAP [veteran's educational assistance program] turned out to be mostly worthless and more trouble than it was worth. but at least i got a civil service job out of my trouble, after i got out.

they knew i was gay even before DADT, without me saying a word about it, so i was the only one in the unit that was NOT asked to re-up, and because too many other GIs got ashcanned in my unit, any additional premature losses would have looked bad, and they didn't want to go through the trouble of chapter paperwork to get rid of me also, so they just let me ETS [Echo Tango Samsonite, Expiration Term Service, IOW getting the hell outta there!] in peace. i got out at the same time as the unit personnel clerk, an E7, and he threw a party which i went to, in which he told people he was retiring to become a PFC [private effing civilian]

Last edited by auntblabby on 05 Oct 2010, 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

I joined as a Reservist early this year, but had to stop parading due to uni commitments. I'm not sure if I will return, as it wasn't really at all what I was expecting. Some say joining the military is great for aspies, as it is so "rules based". I found the opposite, we were thrown in the deep end and everything was uncertain and always changing. I guess once I finished training and worked in my chosen field it would have been clearer, but during my time their I didn't feel at all comfortable.

On a positive note, though, some of the things I experienced and achieved I was rather proud of, so it was difficult but also rewarding.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed I was "different". I was in an engineering unit so I imagine there were probably some other aspies there too. Also being female, the guys probably expected me to be a little different to the average female anyway.

I want to thank everyone for what they did
in the armed forces.

Thank you.

In the Marines I experienced a mix of randomness and rule-based.

It's random in that, especially at the lower ranks, you don't necessarily know what you are going to be doing the next day. You might be visiting the firing range, making a trip to the gas chamber, going on a 6-mile run, or just sit around the barracks all day waiting to be told what to do.

And then it's rule-based in that everyone follows the same rules of conduct, the same customs and courtesies, and the same Uniform Code of Military Justice. You know exactly how to act around another service member, all you have to do is have a glance at their rank.

Anyway, while I was in I served a year in Iraq. Not in a combat position, I was the liaison for the Marine civil affairs teams who organized the reconstruction of Ramadi, as well as humanitarian work like water drops and clothing distribution. Any time they needed a project funded the financial paperwork went through me, where I organized it and got it ready to be emailed to Fallujah for approval.

That's actually how I found my "skill" with accounting, and I'm in college as an accounting major today as a result of it. Before then I never found anything I was truly "skilled" in. I was unfortunate enough to be placed in Artillery, and needless to say I was really no good at it.

sounds like your good luck in civil affairs outweighed your bad luck in the artillery. something to be thankful for.

I strongly considered joining the foregin legion when i was younger. it seemed like the perfect fit since my world was confusing, finances crap, and i had nothing I wouldnt mind leaving behind.

good move on my part not doing it think, it takes a special kind of aspie. especially with sensory and social issues.

I was in the Army for 6 months. This was before I was diagnosed.

I managed to finish basic, but not AIT (Adanced Individual Training.) I couldn't stay based on that I became really homesick, and I just acted out. Though what is interesting on my DD214, is that all it appears that I need to go back in, is a psych eval saying that I'm fine now. I don't know how it will be as I am diagnosed Asperger's, but maybe that might get 'grandfathered' in, being that I passed basic before my diagnosis.

I was training in AIT to become a cargo specialist, but I'm not going to do that again. I might pick something else. maybe MP?

i knew a few MPs who told me to a person, that it is very cutthroat in that MOS. a lot of QMP'ing going on there. choose your MOS very carefully, as changing careers in the military is not like on the outside.

I was in the navy and it was a terrible fit for me. Naval Nuclear Power Program is a great place to find undiagosed aspies, imo.

My dad was in that lol.

Am a member of the Aussie Army Reserve. Have served for about a year. Waiting to see if the army has a job for me, transferring to Army Public Relations Corps. I entered before I was diagnosed, through most of my training courses I have been a bit of a heat seeker, getting into trouble (FYI, Officer Cadets should not tell their section commander where to put their machine guns, even if they're wrong). I made up for the social issues by knowing my doctrine and manuals better than most.

Its been a mixed bag, everyone who has served will probably say that.