I have been a medical assistant for several years and came within a semester of completing an LVN program at a local community college. Now I am considering enlistment in order to finish my nursing school since I can't afford to pay rent, bills, etc while in a nursing program full time. I am looking at all branches but none of the recruiters at the local station can seem to give me definitive answers on nursing. So I have a few questions.

The Army Sergeant I have been talking with stated that he doesn't believe you can typically get M6 as part of your contract (68WM6). He told me that normally you go for the medic then apply to be accepted into the M6-LPN program. He said there does not have to be any space of time between 68W to training for an M6. He did say he might be able to get the M6 as part of my contract through connections he has but I am skeptical of this if this really is something that's not normally done.

So to any M6s-how did you go about getting into this MOS? Is it possible to be guaranteed this in your contract? If not how difficult was it for people to get in and is there truly no required gap in time to apply? Although confident in my education, I would just hate to enlist with the intent of getting my nursing license, not get into the nursing program, and come out with the civilian equivalent of what I am now.

Also what about reserves? Is it possible to get the 68WM6 MOS through reserves? How does that work? My recruiter didn't really have any information to give me on reserves and if it's possible to get the same training in reserves as active duty then I think that might be better for me.

Last question-An old friend of mine who is an AF recruiter told me to be very careful with the Army. That just because I am guaranteed the training doesn't mean I will have that job at the end of the day. For example when I get to my field station they could say they had to many medics and they want me to be an artillery mechanic until a medic spot opens up. Because (according to him) with Army you are a soldier first, then your job. So any army medics or nurses is there any truth to this?

Thanks in advance, any responses are appreciated. I'm getting a lot of conflicting information so I would love to hear some from the people who have been there.

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Last question-An old friend of mine who is an AF recruiter told me to be very careful with the Army. That just because I am guaranteed the training doesn't mean I will have that job at the end of the day. For example when I get to my field station they could say they had to many medics and they want me to be an artillery mechanic until a medic spot opens up. Because (according to him) with Army you are a soldier first, then your job. So any army medics or nurses is there any truth to this

I doubt they go to this extreme but I can tell you this, get assigned to ANYTHING other than a Meddac or Medcen (which is now mostly staffed by civilians instead of Soldiers guess the Army rather pay $20 an hour for civilians than use the Soldiers they have already trained to do the job, or pregnant female medical Soldiers who can't deploy take your pick) and you will probably not be doing a "medics" job. For instance, get assigned to a Combat support hospital and you even though trained as a nurse might find your days filled with motor pool duty (working on vehicles assigned to the hospital), supply inventory of medical supplies, equipment inventory, cutting grass, checking on tents (holes, mildew etc) that the hospital uses, spending days in shipping containers doing inventory add infitim. Point is there is far more to running a "field" hospital than just "medical" aspect to it. You may find yourself assigned one of these jobs

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Originally posted by 22603454:
Also what about reserves? Is it possible to get the 68WM6 MOS through reserves? How does that work? My recruiter didn't really have any information to give me on reserves and if it's possible to get the same training in reserves as active duty then I think that might be better for me.

I'm in 68W training right now and one of the guys in my platoon is Reserve and has M6 in his contract so it's definitely possible.

Also, I forgot to add that if you're Reserve and have your LPN and an Associates degree you can direct commission as an officer instead of going enlisted. If I were you I'd finish your last semester and try for that.

The Army Reserve will only commission you if you are a Registered Nurse, and have an Associates degree or higher. LPNs remain enlisted.

Really? We had a recruiter from AMEDD come talk to us last week and she told us that if we went M6 and already had an Associates we'd be able to commission. I could have been a lot more tired than I thought and heard completely wrong though, lol.

I think you might have heard him wrong.

Unless there has been a major change, the Army does not commission LPNs.

For Commissioning you need a BS degree not associates. You must have misunderstood. I am just going through commissioning for Nursing.

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Originally posted by SusanneCollins:
For Commissioning you need a BS degree not associates. You must have misunderstood. I am just going through commissioning for Nursing.

You can commission into the Army Reserves with an ASN.

You are correct that for Regular Army you must have a BSN.