Medical Issues and ROTC

Air Force ROTC is one of the most respected programs in the country. ROTC allows college students to be involved in the military and still attend college. There are ROTC branches all over the country at various colleges so any student could be involved. Although this sounds like the prime idea to someone who wanted to earn money for college, there is still a rigorous checklist you must pass before you can join. Grades, class rank, and bad marks on your record could keep you from joining the military and becoming an officer. However, the biggest test you must pass is your medical exam, because a large portion of students are disqualified for medical reasons.

I have been involved in this discourse community for two years now and I have been able to see the effects a medical issue can have while you are in ROTC. In the military, you must have a clean bill of health in order to join, and even something as small as asthma can cause disqualification. Before allowing you to continue processing to join, applicants must pass a rigorous medical exam called the Department of Defense Medical Evaluation Review Board (DODMERB). An anonymous doctor will evaluate the applicant’s health in various ways. They will check the blood pressure, temperature, and possibly take urine and blood samples. They will also check the hearing of the applicant. The applicant will also be required to visit a military eye doctor. This would be mostly if you wanted to be a pilot that requires 20/20 vision, but you do not need 20/20 vision to be in the military. After this examination, they will let you know if you have passed or not in a two to three week time period. If the applicant was lucky enough to pass, they can then be on their way to joining whichever military program they choose. Medical examinations in the military have not always been this stringent. For example, in 1964 it was found that “if all the young men turning 18 in 1964 were examined, about 500,000 would be found unqualified [for military service]; [these] rejections [were expected to] rise to 600,000 or more per year for the rest of the decade.” (JAMA) These medical examinations are not without their problems too. Medical advisors can miss something, or the applicant can find out that they could possibly have something that medically disqualifies them that they had no clue they had. This is the case in my story, along with other unfortunate cadets.

These are the cadets of Detachment 665. When you are a cadet, the detachment is where all of the cadets come to attend their ROTC classes and just come to hang out. In ROTC, you are required to do several tasks along with being a student. There are several classes you must attend throughout the quarter, such as Lead Lab, which is an hour and a half of lecture. You must also attend PT each Monday and Wednesday at six thirty in the morning. Along with other events, ROTC is like having a full time job.

Here is a video that shows that ROTC way of life at UC.






This is me, Jackie Crawford, along with the rest of my flight. This was taken only a few weeks before I found out I was going to be medically disqualified. Being a scholarship cadet, I had a four year scholarship, along with a monthly stipend of $350. I earned my scholarship in high school and I passed all of the medical exams I was given (5 to be exact). I thought I would be just fine to serve in the Air Force, and I never thought that I would have to worry about this again. Well, I was wrong to assume such a thing, because unfortunately, it happened. During my sophomore year of college, I was getting constant bladder infections. I went to several doctors who told me just to take pill after pill. Finally, I met with a urologist who told me he would perform a procedure on me to help diagnose my condition. After my procedure, he told me and my family that I had something called Interstitial Cystitis, which caused me to have severe pain in my bladder and then told me this was a lifelong condition. Of course, this needed to be reported to headquarters. This condition then had me disqualified from the ROTC program, along with other factors. My scholarship was taken away and now there is a possibility that it may have to be paid back.

There are cadets who go through this more times than I first thought. There were at least two cadets who were medically disqualified during my first year, even one right before he commissioned and graduated! There was also one of my fellow classmates who just got medically disqualified as well not too long ago. Cadet Price was a sophomore like me who has been in the program for two years as well. He was a very dedicated cadet who wanted to be an officer more than anything. He went to the doctor and was told his hearing was not good enough to continue on with the program.
As you can expect, this was devastating and unexpected. I spoke with Cadet Price about his experience with the medical evaluations and ROTC:

Me: Cadet Price, how have you been coping with the idea that you can no longer be in the ROTC program?

Price: It's strange, because it's been a huge part of my life for the past year. It's also especially difficult because I already went through the drama of not knowing whether I would stay in ROTC when I was competing for an EA. Maybe dealing with the drama of wondering if I got an EA tempered me and made this medical issue easier to deal with, but I wish I had gotten disqualified before I got my EA... less stress that way.


Me: Did you undergo any medical exams before you entered the program?

Price: I've played sports all my life, so I've had a physical every year of my life, but none of them tested hearing. I've been in marching bands and drumlines for the past 10 years which I'm sure has a large part in my hearing loss, but I never knew until I got a hearing test for ROTC.


Me: Why did you need to get a medical exam now?

Price: I got my medical exam because of ROTC. I had to get my hearing retested because I was disqualified the first time, and my retest wasn't good enough to take me off of the disqualification.


Me: Do you feel it is unfair that you were forced to leave the program because of a medical issue?

Price: That's a complicated question... I really wanted to be an officer in the Air Force and I really feel that my hearing loss wouldn't have been an impedance to my job as an officer, but I realize that the economy is tough and the Air Force is already overstaffed. Why take me into the program when they can take someone else who doesn't have any medical issues? Still, It's difficult for me to understand the no-tolerance policy the Air Force seems to have regarding medical waivers. I do have hearing loss, but it's not much. So, I don't think it's fair, but I understand why it happened.

In ROTC, the literacy practices are mostly dense forms. In my experience, I have had to sign numberous forms from when I first started the program to now when I am going through the disenrollment process. The medical requirements are included in these dense forms, and it is very difficult for the average student to sort through. These dense forms are very in depth and you must read them carefully before signing anything. Also, there are many face-to-face encounters when you are going through medical issues. Price and I both met with the cadre, the officers who run the detachment, numerous times. They told us how the disenrollment would be carried out, as well as, what to expect in the end. During this process, I had to experience the change of command when our coloniel left the detachment and another came in to take his place. So I had to carry out this dienrollment with an officer I barely knew. This can be one of the criticisms of the ROTC programs communication mode. They change out personel rapidly and move around officers so much that those whom cadets had grown to know may suddenly leave. This transition made the situation more intense and scary for me. Another example of litery mode is the communication between cadets. Cadet interaction is a major part of the program and life as a cadet. It is a relatively small group of cadets, so when someone get's medical disqualified word spreads fast. During my disenrollment process, I had many of my friends ask me "what happened?" and "what are you going to do?", but in reality, they did not understand the situation because they were not going through it. Many of the cadets stood by me through this hard time, but just like leaving any other group, the communication seemed to cease as time went on. Thus, the communication modes of ROTC are generally limited to only those within the program itself; it is not surprisingly then that so many other students and individuals know little about the ROTC program and its requirements.

Unfortunately for Price and I, there is not much we can do. There are waivers that are handed out to people who apply for them, but the amount of waivers being handed out today is slim. The Air Force is trying to cut down on the amount of officers commissioning each year by becoming stricter on things such as your medical status, but is this unfair to the cadets who have worked so hard to become an officer? I believe that the Air Force is cutting short some cadets who could be great officers, whether they had a “medical condition” or not. Instead of looking at what the medical records say, they should look at the whole person and decide whether they would be better off in or out of the military. Having a serious medical issue could keep you from maintaining proper standards, but minor health issues would not keep a great cadet from becoming a great officer. These are the thoughts the medical advisors must keep in mind before deciding to change a person’s life and dreams forever.


WORKS CITED

NEELY WA. ONE THIRD OF A NATION?. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 1964-06-29;188:1142.

Teague N. Medical Waivers for Atopic Conditions Did Not Affect Attrition Among U.S. Military Academy Cadets. Military medicine. 2011-01-01;176:50-52.