Navy Nurse being stationed on other branches' bases?

[chaplngrillsgt]

Hello all,

I will be graduating in 2 years with my BSN and joining the US Navy. My girlfriend will be graduating around the same time as a clinical social worker in the Air Force via HPSP. I have read a little about JOIN SPOUSE and talked to my recruiter about it, but I would like some real life experience and advice about it given my situation.

Also, as medical professionals, is it possible for us to be stationed on the base of the other's branch (i.e. Can I be stationed on a AF base? Or can she be stationed on a Navy base?) since we do the same job regardless of branch?? I talked to a Navy Captain who is a doctor who said he was able to stay at the same base (or extremely close) by "trading" assignments with an Army doctor...

Thanks for the help!

P.S. New to the forum, but finding AWESOME advice and information!

[chaplngrillsgt]

A dual services couple's ability to be stationed at the same facility will depend on if the other service is authorized slots at that facility.

Is this at all common? It seems like from other posts that this is pretty rare.

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

Not to be pedantic, but as I said, it depends. It's not common, but it's becoming less uncommon. Not overnight, but it's happening.

Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu has Army and Navy personnel; here at SAMMC we now see everybody (the X-ray tech I saw in the ED a couple of weeks ago was a Coastie!); what used to be Wilford Hall Medical Center over at Lackland (now Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center) has all branches. Landstuhl in Germany has been "joint" for years. The ability to be stationed together depends on the facility and how their manning documents read and what specialties are supported and all sorts of other personnel stuff that's thankfully above my pay grade. As the number of military medical centers decrease and the amount of joint basing increases, it will probably become a bit more common.