I'm 17 right now and in high school. My questions is, if I wait till i'm 18 to join, which is in july of 2009, what will my chances be of getting the guaranteed contract to go to HM A school after bootcamp, Say there are no spots left for the A school, how long would I have to wait potentially for the spot to be available again? In other words, I want to join the navy but I want to be a corpsman only and preferably go FMF. I am a male by the way. My "classifier" wants me to take the asvab and join the DEP so I can get the guranteed contract now but thats not an option because my mom wont sign anything, she wants me to wait till im 18. In other words, am I still going to have the oppourtunity to become a corpsman if I sign up in July because I figure that is late to sign up.

YOu can sign up in July but will likely have to wait to go to bootcamp. HOw long depends on what job you take and when the first seat is open. I know you stated you only want HM but what if you don't qualify? (remember ASVAB scores are only a small part of qualifying).

Yeah thats a good point, im almost certain that ill be qualified because im pretty smart so the asvab will be no problem hopefully and im in perfect health condition, im not sure if being 6'5'' is a bad thing when i want to be a combat medic, lol thats the only potential problem, but i guess when ur a medic everyone is aiming for you anyway. :P

quote:

not sure if being 6'5'' is a bad thing

It will be if they measure you at 6'6"

O really whys that. i was hoping to opt out of submarine duty lol

Over and you are DQ'd, that his the ht limit to enlist.

Ht limit, so close to home. When I was 17 i took the ASVAB for the first time. The Army recruiter gave a good pitch for WO flying the Apache. I went back after I turned 18 and he told me I couldn't do it. I went from 6'4" to 6'6" that year. *LOL* Not everyone can get the David Robinson waiver... I sucked at basketball.

MW,
I hear ya. Second time I went to MEPS they had to measure me twice. At the time I was 6'4", right at the current ht limit. I passed and have since grown to 6'9" (joys of enlisting at 17). Once on recruiting duty I had to look down at a kid that was 6'5" and tell him he was too tall to enlist. And nope not good at basketball either.

Wait is there a height limit for HM or is that just sub duty?

6'6" is the ht enlistment to enlist, over and you are DQ. There is no ht limit for subs but over 6 ft on a fast attack gets pretty tight.

Assuming that height is not a problem if want you really want is too be a combat medic not just an HM then the chances of getting that are whole lot better if you join the Army.

The Army has a whole lot more combat medics than the Navy has FMF corpman.

Only the minority of HM's in the Navy go on to be FMF corpman. You could become an HM in the Navy, do 20 plus years and spend the entire time working in a shore duty clinic taking temperatures,blood pressures and filing records and/or riding surface ships handing out cough drops and checking, well you know.

Yeah I've looked into the army corps, I'll take my chances with the Navy I don't care how long it takes.

Hm has a lot of cool NEC's besides FMF, Check out NEC 8493 (Medical deep sea diving tech) which is one of the few source ratings for NEC 5348 (Marine Mammal sytems operator) HM's have a lot of great opportunities.

quote:

Originally posted by william969:
6'6" is the ht enlistment to enlist, over and you are DQ. There is no ht limit for subs but over 6 ft on a fast attack gets pretty tight.

Nah, 6ft is ok. I'm 6ft on the nose. Only have a few scars on my brain pan. Hey,they are worth 0% disability... LOL. You'd be ok up to about 6' 3 or 4" after that you're pretty much whacking your head a lot. Or walking stooped over all the time. I had one guy workin for me on Ohio who was 6' 3". Not much problems... much. It's relative.

**** I am 6'5'' by the way, but I cant say that submarines spark a particular interest in me.

Yeah I would have to agree with that mwcoleburn, i will definitely explore options like that but I would have to say at this point, FMF seems like it would be the most I could do to help soldiers and families directly thats all I really care about. Can you go to school for one NEC then do that for like a couple years then go back for another NEC at c school? Or once I get or choose fmf, if i get it, will that be all I will be doing?

Erik,
I didn't have too "much" problems when I went on two boomers but that was just for a tour and one day bob. Didn't have to try a rack out, luckily. I have heard of a few folks in the 6'8"-6'9" range on boomers but I don't think they would make it on a fast attack. I almost had to crawl when I went on a tour in San Diego. Even on the carrier I'm stooped over and know everyone by their boots