I haven’t been able to find a straight answer on any of the US military branches’ web sites, so perhaps it’s case-dependent. But there have to be some guidelines for prescreening by recruiters so nobody wastes their time.
A certain young man of my very close acquaintance, out of high school and with a year of community college completed but with the lack of goals and internal motivation typical of that age, is considering trying the military. He has a diploma, no legal record, not even a ticket, and no history of drug use or anything else that might be disqualifying that I know of. But, he has a significant problem with attention-deficit disorder and hyperactivity, controllable with medication but he can function without it.
Would ADD itself be disqualifying, no matter what, or would it depend on degree? If not, would use of daily medication keep him out regardless of what it’s for? If those are “maybes”, what branches or specialties would accept his condition?
When I talked to a recruiter after college, I was told I needed to get my allergy shots down to once a month. Then again, this was in the early 1990’s, when they were downsizing. Get out the phone book, and call the local recruiting station. They will tell you how fussy the medics are these days.
You should talk to a recruiter about that. On the www.goarmy.com site, they have a section where you can talk to a recruiter through a chat window. It moves kinda fast though, so you have to pay attention. It’s a pretty cool feature, actually.
my W.A.G. would be that someone who more-or-less depended on daily medication would be rejected. Can’t rely on continuing to get it on the battlefield. They are pretty picky in peacetime.
We’ve discussed this before. According to current/former military folks, any ingestion (like, at any point in one’s life) of Ritalin et all was enough to disqualify you. The military is apparently fairly harsh about letting in ADHD types. Someone should be along soon with mo’ information.
To cut to the skinny, if your friend really wanted to get into the military, have him taper off his meds, so he won’t have any withdrawl symptoms, and then join up. Just don’t mention anything about ADD/ADHD or any meds. Although this may sound “iffy” the military doesnt like non-military doctors making a diagnoses. Your friend could join up, then at a later date, go see a doc, go over the whole process again to be diagnosed with ADHD, and take meds like he did in the civillian world and he’d be back where he was before. Just in the military. The primary reason for DQ’ing ADD/ADHD peoples is that most have taken drugs like Ritalin, Adderral, etc. These drugs can mask severe psychological disorders and people can go berserk.
However, the military has the advantage of “streamling” things for you. And, he may not even have to take the meds one he has a specified NEC, MOS, etc since he won;t have to worry about much else besides that one job. You’d be surprised how many “non-diagnosed” ADD/ADHD people there are in the military.
Also, there are plenty of people in all military branches that take daily meds for a variety of reasons. They also don’t want people joining up and bogging down the system for the healthcare benefits. Some do, some do.
BTW: (my disclaimer) don’t hold me to any of this.
