Badger14
Unverified
Hello all,
I'm a 24-year-old male, and I'm a new member on the site, but I've spent many hours lurking and finding some good information on this forum. Here's some background information that I believe is relevant to my current situation (double-bracketed), but since I may be wrong in that belief, I've underlined my specific questions:
{{ After having entered the Navy's Delayed Entry Program back in June 2015, shortly after I graduated college, I requested to leave the DEP in August of that year, while I was making myself competitive for an SO [SEAL] contract. I wanted to explore other options at the time. I took the LSAT in October 2015, scored well, and applied and was accepted with scholarships to all law schools to which I applied. However, I opted not to go to law school and instead did a volunteering stint at a legal service agency down in Philly, where I worked closely with attorneys doing Pro Bono work.
Fast-forward briefly to January 2017: I re-committed myself to getting back into the Navy's DEP and securing an SO contract to start the SEAL training pipeline. After a few months of training, I sustained a complete MCL tear and partial ACL tear to my right knee in April 2017, and I made matters worse by rushing my recovery (completing Murph on or about Memorial Day of that year)... A few months later, in July, I started experiencing severe lower back pain and was later diagnosed with a herniated disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. I couldn't bend forward from the waist or sit for extended periods of time without nerve pain, but thankfully, I rehabbed well and was asymptomatic by around January 2018.
Unfortunately, in attempting to re-enter the Navy's DEP in February 2018, I was permanently disqualified after revealing the injuries I had sustained to my right knee and then lower back; the Navy denied my waiver request and did not change its decision after I submitted additional medical documentation from the physical therapist I had seen months prior. }}
I know that I'm largely responsible for my current situation, and while the initial knee injury was arguably bad luck, I was terribly impatient and paid the price for not recovering properly at the time... I've spent some time looking into the Army, reasoning that it's the only branch for which I'd have a shot at a medical waiver, given that the Marines and Air Force (from what I've gathered) tend to be more selective than the Navy while the Army can afford to be as selective or less so. Specifically, I'm interested in going SF, but I understand that I'd be ineligible for an 18X contract with a medical waiver. With all the expository out of the way, which I hope has proven relevant up to this point, here's what I'm wondering:
- Is there still any chance of picking up an 18X contract while at boot camp? (I've read accounts of this, but they were dated, so I'm curious what's currently the case.)
- If the answer to the above is "No", what would the process of "dropping an SF packet" look like as an enlisted soldier, including the timeline? (I've heard from multiple recruiters I called up that I could drop an SF packet shortly after completing boot camp.)
Thank you for your time and attention. All informed responses, including critical/corrective ones, will be highly appreciated.
I'm a 24-year-old male, and I'm a new member on the site, but I've spent many hours lurking and finding some good information on this forum. Here's some background information that I believe is relevant to my current situation (double-bracketed), but since I may be wrong in that belief, I've underlined my specific questions:
{{ After having entered the Navy's Delayed Entry Program back in June 2015, shortly after I graduated college, I requested to leave the DEP in August of that year, while I was making myself competitive for an SO [SEAL] contract. I wanted to explore other options at the time. I took the LSAT in October 2015, scored well, and applied and was accepted with scholarships to all law schools to which I applied. However, I opted not to go to law school and instead did a volunteering stint at a legal service agency down in Philly, where I worked closely with attorneys doing Pro Bono work.
Fast-forward briefly to January 2017: I re-committed myself to getting back into the Navy's DEP and securing an SO contract to start the SEAL training pipeline. After a few months of training, I sustained a complete MCL tear and partial ACL tear to my right knee in April 2017, and I made matters worse by rushing my recovery (completing Murph on or about Memorial Day of that year)... A few months later, in July, I started experiencing severe lower back pain and was later diagnosed with a herniated disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. I couldn't bend forward from the waist or sit for extended periods of time without nerve pain, but thankfully, I rehabbed well and was asymptomatic by around January 2018.
Unfortunately, in attempting to re-enter the Navy's DEP in February 2018, I was permanently disqualified after revealing the injuries I had sustained to my right knee and then lower back; the Navy denied my waiver request and did not change its decision after I submitted additional medical documentation from the physical therapist I had seen months prior. }}
I know that I'm largely responsible for my current situation, and while the initial knee injury was arguably bad luck, I was terribly impatient and paid the price for not recovering properly at the time... I've spent some time looking into the Army, reasoning that it's the only branch for which I'd have a shot at a medical waiver, given that the Marines and Air Force (from what I've gathered) tend to be more selective than the Navy while the Army can afford to be as selective or less so. Specifically, I'm interested in going SF, but I understand that I'd be ineligible for an 18X contract with a medical waiver. With all the expository out of the way, which I hope has proven relevant up to this point, here's what I'm wondering:
- Is there still any chance of picking up an 18X contract while at boot camp? (I've read accounts of this, but they were dated, so I'm curious what's currently the case.)
- If the answer to the above is "No", what would the process of "dropping an SF packet" look like as an enlisted soldier, including the timeline? (I've heard from multiple recruiters I called up that I could drop an SF packet shortly after completing boot camp.)
Thank you for your time and attention. All informed responses, including critical/corrective ones, will be highly appreciated.
