Hi all,
I'm a senior BSN student graduating this spring, and am trying to sort out my plans for what I'm doing upon graduation. My main intent I've decided I'd like to do is to join the military as a nurse, specifically leaning toward the Navy. I've read over these forums for info quite a bit in the past year while contemplating the idea, so I figured I'd turn here to see if I could get any advice.
I've been trying to look into it for a while now but just haven't been having much luck. Does anyone have any advice on how to specifically go about joining the Navy as an RN?
I initially last summer submitted an indication of interest for the Navy Nurse Corps on their online recruiting page, and they did call me back from that. The operator asked me some basic demographic questions and if I have any medical conditions, medications I'm taking, etc. and said that if everything was good, she would put me through to a recruiter. She didn't though - she just ended the call and that was that. I'm perfectly healthy, young, in-shape, and have no criminal record or anything - I can't think of anything that would be disqualifying.
About a week later, I checked back on the site and found the email address for an officer recruiter in my area, and sent a message to that indicating interest - but never got a response. A buddy of mine in the Army recommended going to the recruiting office in person, so I tried that but the door was locked and no one would answer (it was normal business hours). I tried calling the phone number posted on the door but got the answering machine, so I left a message stating interest and leaving contact info to get back to me, but never heard anything back.
A couple months later, I checked the Navy recruiting site and saw that the email address it gave for the officer recruiter in my area changed, so I gave that one a try sending a message stating interest. I actually did get a response from this one, and the guy was very on it! He promptly responded saying he could get my info to a medical recruiter in my area and they could help me from there. He gave me an applicant info form to fill out (just more basic demographic stuff), I got that back to him, and he said he forwarded it along and I should hear back within the next week and to let him know if I didn't. A week passed and I didn't hear anything, so I emailed him saying so. He apologized and said he'd track down the recruiter for followup. A few weeks passed without hearing anything, so I emailed him again checking in on it, and didn't get a response. So now I appear to be back to square one and running out of avenues to look into.
I've hit a lot of dead ends and I don't know if this is normal or what. I'm serious about my interest, and would hate to not be able to follow through just because I never managed to actually get through to anyone to try. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
