Airforce/Military Nurse Officer?!?

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Jun 2, 2018

I encourage you to read through some of the threads on the government/military nurse thread on this site. Most of your questions are answered numerous times over.

You can do either ROTC for at least 2 years while in nursing school, or you can opt for direct commission instead. I never did AF ROTC, but my general understanding is all nursing majors get active duty if they want it but can choose reserves instead. Direct commission is essentially a job application on steroids; you would reach out to a recruiter in your last year of nursing school. Direct commission allows you to avoid jumping through all the ROTC hoops, but it's very competitive and many people don't get in.

As an AF nurse, your day to day job is pretty much the same as a civilian nurse. However, you have minimal control where you live and work. Your salary is what the military officer pay scale is set as; google it. New grad nurses start as O-1, 2nd Lieutenant. You should contact a healthcare recruiter on the AF website to learn about any sign-on bonuses or loan repayment.

I don't know what 'go to war' means. All nurses in the military are expected to regularly and routinely deploy to potentially unsafe overseas locations. For the AF, that means you could deploy up to 6 months out of every 24 months.

jeckrn, BSN, RN · Jun 3, 2018

- How long are the officer contracts? Are they a mix of active and non active duty?

All contracts are for 8 years and can be a mix from 3 years active/5 reserves to all active or all reserves.

- What benefits do I have when I'm not active?

In the reserves you have MWR, PX & commissary privileges but not much else.

- How long into my contract can I go back to school?

Depends on how you want to pay for it or what degree you want.

- Will I ever have to go to war? What is the likelihood?

No one can answer that because no one knows. It all depends on what is going on in the world during your time in the military.

- Any information about the health professionals loan repayment program would be helpful!!

A healthcare recruiter would be able to give you the most up to date information.

- What would my job consist of as a nurse officer? Both on the nursing and government side

See previous post.

- Is the income/salary better than civilian nursing?

This depends on where you would work as a civilian nurse. The part of the country I am from you would make more as a junior military nurse then a civilian nurse but other parts of the country it is the opposite. You also have to consider the non-tax income of a military nurse, healthcare(no insurance premium), housing allowance, food allowance.

- How long do I need to serve if I'm looking to retire in the airforce?

20 years, this is the standard for all military service.