Thinking about the Military

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Hello all,

I am new to this forum and would like a little help from you all. I am a second semester BSN nursing student. I finished my second semester passing all of my courses except Medsurg and will have to repeat Medsurg alone before I can move onto enrolling in my third semester. I will have to sit out at least one or two semesters before there is a spot that will open up for me into a new cohort of nursing students. My ultimate goal is to be a military nurse. I am 29 with a girlfriend and no kids. I was thinking about applying for OCS after I receive my BSN in nursing, but I weighed out my chances, and my resume cannot compete with someone who is coming out of ROTC or has years of nursing experience. I figured I can enlist in the National Guard and have some military experience while I sit out and wait for a spot to open up for me to continue in nursing school. Are there anyone who is in the National Guard and went through nursing school? Was it difficult? Is it doable? Any tip would help. Thank you!

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I'm not in the National Guard, but I am in the reserves. I'm going to assuming you want to enlist as as a 68W. BCT and AIT adds up to about 26 weeks . Will your school hold your seat while you are gone for training? There are a lot of 68 series in my unit that goes to school while they drill, so it is doable. I am doing it as well. Sometimes I have to chance to study during a slow drill, but I usually front load my materials before drill in case it is a busy drill.

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The recruiter said that i am able to do a split training which will be two summers apart. Do you think it would be best to finish my degree first and apply as an officer, or enlist now? The school will hold my seat if it is military related leave.

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In my opinion, if you have an itching to serve right now and can afford the time, then enlist.

If you do enlist, there is always a possibility of deployments/mobilizations which can affect your goal of becoming a RN. Also, your enlistment contract will provide the conditions on commissioning from enlisted if any; there may or may not be a TIG/TIS requirements before you can apply for a commission. For example, "if you take a bonus, then you must complete x time as a 68W before you take a commission or you must repay bonus." Lastly, your commander will probably have to sign off on your release as a 68W, so your commander might not release you for commissioning if the unit needs whiskeys. Following this path, it should look something like this:

Enlist NG→finish RN→obtain clinical experience→submit competitive direct commission packet→enter AD or RC

Does your campus have a ROTC detachment? Do that if you can if your main goal is to go active duty.

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Enlisting now and having the possibility of other obligations getting in the way is one reason why I really don't want to enlist now. I really just want to finish school asap, but failing one course has delayed the process. Has the reserve been flexible for you with school thus far?

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My unit has been pretty awesome so far. I've seen other Soldiers make up drill on other weekends if they had something going on during a drill weekend. Schedules are given a year in advance, so I can adjust accordingly. However, all units are different. I believe your local unit or your recruiter can arrange for you to visit one of their drill weekends. Maybe that could help you decide.

Don't quote me on this, but NG combat units don't maintain nurses within their roster. You might be assigned into a combat unit as enlisted, and commissioning to a nurse slot might require you to transfer to another unit. Do some research on the unit you would be joining. It might be less of a headache down the road if you enlist into a unit that has RN slots when you are ready to commission.

Also, you might not be deployable since you would not be MOS qualified between the summers so that might help you out.

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