Is this crazy? RN as 68W in Army Reserves

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So is this a crazy idea? First a little about me:

4 years prior service Marine Corps (infantry)

Paramedic for 9 years

Flight Critical Care Paramedic for four years with all the alphabet soup certs.

Current Excelsior student with CPNE scheduled for March

Prior B.S. in psychology

40 years old

Married with 3 children

I have been wanting to go back into military for some time for several personal reasons, family is very supportive. Opportunities for new grad RN's in Army is zero, especially without BSN and 2 years experience. I have the chance to go into the Army Reserves as a 68W E-4 and work with a reserve CSH. My thought is to take the tuition assistance and pay for either a RN-BSN or RN-MSN program. Maybe when I am done with that goal Army RN opportunities will be there again. Maybe CRNA in future.

So, looking for any advice out there. Will I gain much experience? Is enlisted life vs. officer life just as opposite as in the Marines? Is this just a crazy route to go? Thanks for any advice from anyone.

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Specializes in EMT, ER, Homehealth, OR.

is enlisted life vs. officer life just as opposite as in the marines? yes, but not to the same extreme on the medical side.

is this just a crazy route to go? no, not if this is what you want. in the future you will not be the only adn grad going this route. at one time i was a adn grad in the naval reserves as a corpsman until i switched over to the army reserves, completed my bsn and went active 2 years ago at 46.

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Specializes in NREMT-P, GN.

is enlisted life vs. officer life just as opposite as in the marines?

as a prior enlisted in the army and a warrant officer in the army, i can tell you that i did see a big difference between the two. just as i also saw a difference between the warrant rank and the commissioned rank.

it all depends on what it is that you want to get out of each. though the "amenities" get better, the higher you go in rank; i throughly enjoyed my time as an enlisted as well as my time as a warrant.

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Get you BSN CCNE-accredited or NLN-accredited. I believe Excelsior is NLN-accredited but always make sure it is. If you were 2 years younger, I could have helped but once you hit 40, it gets a lot more difficult with Cadet Command waivers.

Rusty

ROTC Goldbar Recruiter

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