USAF RN assignment locations

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · May 2, 2018

If you are considering the military, you need to be open to living anywhere. Your preferences and the needs of your personal life are considered. However, they are always a tertiary concern to the needs of that branch of the military (primary) and the needs of your career (secondary) in the opinion of that branch.

There are some locations where active duty nurses from multiple branches work in the same medical facility. In the U.S., those places are pretty much limited to Walter Reed (D.C.) and San Antonio (TX) Military Medical Center. At those places, there is an established chain of command for each branch. However, you can't just work at an single branch facility out of personal desire alone. An AF nurse can't just go work at Balboa Navy Medical Center in San Diego because they are a single-parent and their family lives there.

As an AF nurse, you could be stationed at any AF base. You can quickly find those dozens of locations with a google search. The major AF hospital locations in the U.S. are in D.C., San Antonio, Fairfield (CA), Anchorage, Destin (FL), Biloxi (MS), and Dayton (OH).

gptgrl · May 3, 2018

Hi,

My husband is an AF ICU RN. I am online today, looking up some stuff, and saw your post. I agree with what jfratian posted. You cannot, as an AF RN, go to work at a navy hospital. Your assignments, depending on your specialty, will also determine which bases are available to you, such as, a Med Surge RN could have more base options compared to my husbands choices as an ICU RN.

I wanted to comment because we have a friend who is a single mom in the AF. For her situation, when she got pregnant, her sister moved in with her and takes care of her son. I know that is a rare case and may not be an option for you. You will have to fill out paperwork stating, when you deploy or have to go away for training, you have someone to take care of you child/children. When you do move to a base, as a single mom, you "should have" top priority to place your child in the CDC, child development center, if not school aged. I would think you could google your job specialty and search for available AF bases; actually, you could probably go to a AF nursing website and they may list all of the bases for each specialty. Good luck

nuHi. I'm planning to join the air force as an RN, but I have a lot of questions considering I am a single mom. What are the possible assignment locations here in the US and is it possible for an airforce nurse to work at another branch' hospitals like navy hospitals? Thanks