Questions as a Navy Nurse Spouse

[thehuntid]

I would appreciate ANY help anyone can offer based on experience or general knowledge..

I have a few questions about my wife joining the navy. She already has her BSN so I understand she will be sent to officer school. My questions are basically:

1. Will I get to see her right after shes done? Will she leave school and immediately be sent to "one of the big 3" as I have read? Or will she be allowed to get her affairs at home in order such as selling our house, packing, preparing to move our kids etc?

2. If she goes straight there, will I get to pack up with our kids and come to her right after she arrives or will I have to wait? (we plan to live on base for at least a little while.)

3. How likely is it for her to be at that post for some time? I have heard/read something like at least 6 months there. Sometimes I have seen/read that this first assignment can be as long as a year or even more...

4. How likely is it for her to be deployed if she wants to just be a clinical nurse?

5. If she does get deployed is that like breaking the first assignment for a new one? I don't really understand the whole deployment process and how it can pertain to spouses and honestly it is the only scary part for me. The idea of her being somewhere for a year that myself and the kids can't go as well is scary.

6. Lastly, if she does get deployed it seems likely we would at least be able to come to almost anywhere with her correct? I mean I get if she gets sent to Iraq or something, we probably would not be able to come with but there are a lot of other places we could I'm hoping..

[jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA]

1 & 2. You all go directly from her graduation from training to her first base. You do not get any time to sell your house. The military contracts a moving company to move her and her dependent's stuff (takes ~1-2 days) and she gets about 1 day per ~400 miles to drive to the base where she will be assigned. It will say on her orders what her report no later than date is. If she chooses to fly, she'll only get 1 travel day, regardless of what the report no later than date is; I would drive. You'll see her when your whole family drives to her first base; you don't get time off between training and the drive to the first base.

3. Stateside assignments are 2 years minimum. Typically they are 4 year assignments, but they can choose to move you after the first 2 years. Overseas assignments are 1-3 years based on the location.

4. Deployments are a near certainty for every nurse. It's not a matter of if, but when. She should join the VA or get a government GS nurse job (usajobs.gov) if she doesn't want to deploy but still serve. Right now deployments are more rare. That can change at any time. At worst, you could deploy 9 months out of every 2 years.

5. Deployments don't break an assignment. The ticking 2-4 year PCS (permanent change of station/new assignment) clock keeps running while you are deployed. You go to a typically dangerous, far away location for about 9 months. When done, you go back to the stateside base you were at before. Meanwhile, the family stays at the stateside base.

6. Families cannot come on deployments, whether it is Qatar, Kuwait, or Iraq. There are overseas permanent assignments, such as Spain, Italy, and Japan where families can come along; those are typically 2 year assignments...not deployments.

[thehuntid]

Wow. That was everything I was looking for. Thank you so much and God Bless you!!

[NurseNicole89]

I am following this as well - is she wanting to go Active or Reserve? My husband is active duty enlisted - (14 years), and I just finished my RN, ASN. I hope once I complete my BSN to do DCO and possibly reserves since my husband will still have some sea time life and I would like to avoid us being deployed at the same time with 2 littles at home. Best of luck to you all. I'm not sure about at first, but as far as duty station moves, we no longer let the military move... we do something called DITY (Do it yourself moves) where we are allotted a certain amount of money/gas/etc to complete our move. We prefer this as we seem to have better luck with stuff not getting broken/messed up/lost - and sometimes we come in under the budget as well.