Nursing in the Navy

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 23, 2017

I don't know much about the Navy except that a dear friend joined years ago. I do have experience as the wife of an Air Force nurse, although that was decades ago. My ex-husband and I both went through the recruiting process. In the end, he joined and I didn't because the fine print said that the military would "attempt to station us together" and not that they WOULD.

Recruiters lie -- at least they did then. Perhaps things are different now, or different in the Navy. Hopefully someone else will weigh in on that on this forum.

If you are deployed, who will care for your daughter? If your base is on lock-down, who will care for your daughter? If you are stuck at work because a plane crashed on the flight line and there were injuries, or because your relief was seriously injured in an accident on the way to work, who will care for your daughter? If you are sent on TDY, who will care for your daughter? These are all things that happened during my tenure as an Air Force wife. These aren't insurmountable problems, but you should have a plan in place. The Air Force used to require a parenting plan in the case that a single parent was to be deployed.

The military is allowed to tell you who you can and cannot date. I have a relative I love dearly who is in imminent danger of losing her job right now because she got pregnant by her immediate supervisor after their commanding officer told them both they weren't allowed to be dating. He has 17 years in the Air Force, and could lose all the retirement benefits he's been working toward if he gets discharged now. Maybe that's not a big deal for you, but maybe it is.

If you are transferred overseas, how will you arrange child care when you're at work? I get that it would be great for you, but think about how it will be for your daughter. (And it may be great for your daughter, too. But you'll be away from your 19 year old for a long time. Is that OK?)

There are numerous advantages to the military life, and I'm sure that your recruiter has covered those. They don't always tell you the negative stuff, so hopefully members with more recent experience will weigh in on those. At least consider those aspects before you make your decision.

And on that note, my ex-husband enjoyed lots of benefits from his military service. It was the right place for him. It would not have been right for me.

j6doll · Jul 24, 2017

OP, I just submitted my kit for the Nurse Candidate Program, so take everything I say with a grain of salt as I only have experience with the application process. Tbh it sounds like your recruiter isn't giving you a realistic expectation of what it could be like. There is no way to guarantee that you'd be stationed at San Diego, especially not for all of the 4 years. Of course, you put in your preferences for duty stations, but it all depends on needs of the Navy and I don't think it's realistic to expect to stay at your first duty station for that long.

How long do you have left in nursing school? Also how old are you? The requirement is you have to be (theoretically) able to complete 20 years of service before you reach age 62, IE if you are over 42 you will need an age waiver, which may or may not be granted based on if you are experienced in a needed specialty. (I only bring up age because you said your daughter is 19 which leads me to think you could be near the age limit)

I'm not trying to dissuade you at all, I just don't think your recruiter is shooting straight!

Meeshie · Jul 25, 2017

Well... the recruiter lied, I can tell you that much. You are required to do a certain amount of ship time. That's Navy life. You will also be required to have signed custodian paperwork for your kids so that you can leave at a moment's notice if required to and someone else can take over the care of your children. Ship time will be a six month stretch. There's no guarantee you won't end up on a ship for six months. They need nurses too, after all. If you're not okay with leaving your kids for six months at a time then don't join the Navy.

j6doll · Jul 25, 2017

Well... the recruiter lied, I can tell you that much. You are required to do a certain amount of ship time. That's Navy life. You will also be required to have signed custodian paperwork for your kids so that you can leave at a moment's notice if required to and someone else can take over the care of your children. Ship time will be a six month stretch. There's no guarantee you won't end up on a ship for six months. They need nurses too, after all. If you're not okay with leaving your kids for six months at a time then don't join the Navy.

I don't think this is quite accurate either. Nurses are not required to do ship time. It's actually not common for nurses to set foot on a ship. There are only a handful of billets for nurses on carriers (like one per ship). Other than that, medical care aboard ships is provided by the corpsmen. It can also be pretty competitive to deploy on the hospital ships, and from what I understand they pull most of their nurses for those deployments from the hospital that the ship is stationed nearest (San Diego for the Mercy and Portsmouth for the Comfort). Nurses definitely deploy, but not often on ships. Hopefully an actual Navy nurse can chime in on this and deployment in general.