Why did you pick your banch?

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Specializes in Surgical Trauma ICU.

I've been looking into military nursing and it seems to be pretty universal throughout the branches as far as what your job is.

Why did you choose your branch or if you are currently considering joining a certain branch, why are you looking into that specific branch over the other branches?

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

Yeah it's maybe 80% the same across branches.

There are certain special duty jobs that are specific to each branch. Most air evac is handled by the Air Force. Ship nursing is handled by the Navy. I know the Army has the brigade nurse role, where you essentially follow a combat unit and do whatever they do.

Other than that, you could look at deployment tempo and bases. I personally think Navy nurses are spoiled with their base locations. I think the Air Force is pretty good based on deployment length (6 months vs. often 9 months for the Army) and deployment predictability (often 6 months on and 18 months off). Army nurses seem to get a lot more GI joe-esq training like land nav, weapons qual, etc (if you're into that).

I also feel that the AF nurse corps focuses more on specialization, while the Navy nurse corps seems to embrace the 'Jack-of-all-trades' mentality. For example, the AF would force a med-surg nurse to go to a formal 1 year school to become an ICU or ER nurse. The Navy might simply tell that med-surg nurse to go to the ICU or ER on Monday...embracing on-the-job, locally-based training.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

I didn't like that the Navy didn't recognize any nursing experience prior to my BSN, which was about 2 years of my 3. And quite honestly I had too many tattoos for anyone except the Army. Easy decision! lol

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