Aspergers and Enlisting in the Military

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I'm just curious if you are diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome are you considered medically ineligible to enlist in the military or national guard?

ppl have posted on here who have been in the service, i dont see why not, i beleive they evaluate ya anyways, some can do it, and thrive, others eather dont make it or cant take anymore half way thru basic

Well if they eliminate people with AS they will be sorely lacking for decent engineers now won't they?

AS itself doesn't disqualify you, but if you've got the depression, anxiety, OCD-type symptoms and have ever taken medication for it, then you're disqualified. Apparently you're more at risk for Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder then.

I'm on a brief professional training program with the Air Force, and was recently assigned to the COM squadron on base. There is no way at least %50 of those guys don't have at least mild AS. Their gait, how they talked, what they thought was funny, they seemed to have no clue whatsoever that the extremely complicated com parts they were describing were a) impossible to understand, and b) extremely boring...all dead giveaways.

To answer your question though, at least for the Air Force, I have gone over the AFI (our regulations) and there is nothing that prevents people with autistic-spectrum disorders from either enlisting or commissioning. There ARE, however, regulations against personality disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders, explicitly laid out. If you have taken any medication in the past year, you are prohibited. I was advised by one of my commanders (informally) that if you go off meds for a year, you are good to go (no need to admit on medical record unless you are looking to start out being excluded from enlisting). However, the military generally does not enforce this, although certain career fields would probably weed those people out. The Armed Forces Journal just did a piece on how many people with mood, anxiety, etc disorders were enlisting and the recruiter tells them not to mention it again if the recruit tells them they have X disorder, etc. 99% of the time they will not even bother looking into it. (Although following some sort of psychiatric meltdown, an evaluation and history will definitely be done). I'm going in as an officer anyway. This is the only thing I can imagine doing, and I've been finding other people who should 100% not be in (asthma, current and ongoing weed use, etc). If you want to do it, you cannot do enough research. Here's a good link about enlisting (although it doesn't cover AS specifically, just any question you can think of): http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... genumber=1

We could consider ourselves lucky if they didnt accept us. But my belief is that the military is about defending democracy and human rights in the same way that corporations are about making sure we are provided with the things we need for healthy and satisfying lives. HA! I say.

Something to consider if they reinstate the draft?

Sorry but a recruiter came to my JROTC class and said they will not
recruit anybody on the spectrum because they are afraid that we will
get insanly stressed out with the loud noises and deadly situations.

hahahaha, man, its not like the time of my grandfather, i loved his stories of pounding thru italy, Monti Casino, and smashing thru the German boarder. Thats real war, personal, i could never fight a war from a computer, maby im old fasioned, but indeed, modern war is more like a video game, guess thats the way it is. If i was to enlist, I would speak nothing of my disorder, as i rairly have ever, no special treatment, i would want the same crap everyone else gets. I wanna get down in the dirt with the grunts, the smell of gun powder and the loud bangs of artillary.

GET DOWN AND GIVE ME 20 U MAGGOTT!