r/newtothenavy

I’m going to turn 28 in June. I currently have a job at a major airline as an aircraft technician. I make well over a 100k.
I’m interested because 1. I always wanted to go. 2. Is I have a stay at home wife and 2 kids, I wonder if the benefits would help us. Talking to my coworkers who are former military keeps me wanting to go due to their benefits. One good thing is I’ll be able to keep my position and seniority at my current job.

I am a 25 year old female who have history of two suicide attempts and 4 psychiatric hospitalizations.

Two of the hospitalizations were due to the attempts, obviously, and the other two were due to expressing suicidal ideations. All four hospitalizations happened back in 2023.

After that, I just lost faith in psychiatric treatments and decided to see my problems more objectively.

I am currently preparing for PA school and my plan is to start applying in 2028. If I get accepted, I want to apply for HPSP so that my tuition can be covered by the military. I also want to be a PA at trauma center, which military is the best opportunity for it. I've always had mad respect for those who serve in the military as well. I just never expected myself to want to join.

I chose death as the best solution back then. I grew up in domestic violence pretty much my whole life until I went to college. I went to college not having any idea on what I wanted to do for job and when it was time for me to graduate, I still didn't have a career set up for myself, which led to the thought that this life has gone wrong from the beginning.

I had to be independent because of abusive parent but I was barely affording living with a low income barista job and was suffering from severe anxiety (panic disorder). After my first suicide attempt, the doctor just took me off of benzodiazepine due to high risk of abuse. That made my condition worse because I had to just sit through panic attacks with no medication to help it. This led to the second attempt.

After my last (4th) psychiatric hospitalization, I have figured that my body is just very resistant to death right now so I pretty much gave up on dying and see where life takes me.

I got a new job as a dialysis technician and this is the first job I have found as a calling and actually motivated me the first time to advance my career further. No matter how overworkes I am, I still love what I am doing. I always wish I had more expertise in the field and could do more for my patients. I'm in the process of earning clinical hours required for all PA school applicants and I also volunteer as an EMT 12 hours/week.

I got discharged from the hospital back in November of 2023 and I stopped seeing my psychiatrist from 2024 February. mainly for financial difficulties and having someone sit in front of me just to tell me that it's okay to be broke was obviously not helpful. I exactly knew what my problem was. I had to be financially stable to be mentally stable.

I am not underestimating what it takes to serve in the military. I am aware of the physical and mental toll it will take on someone. I have started going to the gym to get physically stronger and I don't need any medications right now for anxiety and insomnia that I used to suffer from. Serving in the military is not a timeless opportunity where I can join any time I want. That's why I want this experience while I'm still considered young and healthy.

Besides my history of mental illness, I do not have any critical chronic or genetic conditions.

My last attempt led to a seizure and arrhythmia but I got a clearance that my heart is back to normal and my brain is also normally functioning. I have went to ER last year due to fainting for a few seconds from dehydration, not eating well, and heat.

For those who have similar experiences as me and got their waivers approved or know of anyone that got their waivers approved after some critical history like me, I'd really appreciate the comments.

I'd also appreciate feedbacks and tips regarding waivers.

I am going to try as best as I can.

I just got my OCS date for Sept. Any tips? Any specific workouts or maybe things bring? Thank!

I signed a 3 year APACT contract and I don’t think my recruiter is being honest, he said that as a PACT sailor I can strike a HM rate after a year and it’s a real possibility. I didn’t strike HM off the bat at MEPS even though I qualified for it because I’m not sure if I will even like the navy. I need help and a recruiters insight that is not mine. Do I switch to SPACT what do I do

So I qualify for nuke but honestly physics isn’t my thing. But I’ve heard the lifestyle is better but I don’t really know. Wanted to hear some of your guy’s inputs on it.

I am 24 year old male, graduated with a degree in resource and technology management with a minor and concentration in CS. I also have a CAPM from the project management institute. I graduated with a 2.9921 gpa and am planning on improving my OAR score from 44 to mid/early 60s. Is this competitive for IP or CW?

I know army is general looking at July-Aug right now, wondering if navy follows.

I hope i can join….

Hi! What are the chances of joining the Navy with an RE-3 code from the Army? How likely is a waiver for a minor stress fracture in the knee?

I am already in contact with a recruiter, and he has all the medical documents about what happened to me in basic training. For context, there was a situation in basic training caused by a Drill Sergeant where several people stepped on my knees, which resulted in a minor stress fracture. I was not given X-rays or an MRI — they only prescribed acetaminophen and crutches for one week, and told me it was nothing serious and would heal on its own. So, in the middle of the pain, I refused to train.

I don't have medical records of any kind, nor any criminal records. I also had no issues of any kind during my time in Basic Training.

Shipping out 2nd of next month, but I have a regularly scheduled haircut coming up. Do y'all think I should just go ahead and tell her to shave it so I don't have to deal with the navy barbers? Worried the RDCs might single me out all "look who came prepared" and I've been told the worst thing you can do at boot camp is stand out. Am I overthinking this?

Hey Everyone,
I recently scored a 74 AFQT on the ASVAB.

Here are my current line scores:
GT: 105
ST: 110
EL: 110
SC: 114
CL: 112

I'm trying to decide between several Navy jobs:

IT (ship or shore duty) — up to $40k bonus
Aircrewman (AW) — $20k bonus
Cyber Warfare Technician (CWT) — no bonus as of current.
Air Traffic Controller (AC) — $30k bonus

Info about me:

21 years old.
I speak 3 languages
Cybersecurity Associate Degree
CompTIA Sect and CCNA Certifications
Some corporate IT experience but it left a bit of a bad taste on my mouth.

My choices:

I originally looked at IT because of the certs, clearance, and civilian opportunities.
But I’m not sure how I’d feel about ship life or being behind a screen again.

Lately I’ve been more interested in Aircrew because it seems more active, more travel-oriented, I also heard they get a lot per diems.

At the same time, I don’t want to make a decision I’ll regret long term just because something sounds exciting right now.

For people who’ve worked these jobs:
What was your quality of life like?
Which rates actually travel the most?
Is Aircrew overhyped?
Did ship life burn you out?
If you could go back, would you still choose your rate?
Would appreciate any advice, especially from AWs, ITs, CWTs, or ACs.

Hello, I recently swore in to DEP and got waivers for PTSD, Anxiety, and depression along with unspecified personality disorder. I did some searching and found out that i was diagnosed with suicidal ideation 1 time 5 years ago. I was never told this and now im freaking out because i fear if i tell the recruiter ill be discharged and ghosted. What can I do?

Recruiter told me it was closed a while back and same with some people here but on the updated board schedule the June supply board seems to be open. Does anyone know if it was reopened?

Any recommendations for an intense HIIT set? Reps and sets, specifics.

I have a while (>1yr) before OCS and want to be as prepared as possible. I passed the PRT easy but want to crush anything physical at OCS.

Thank you!

Hi guys,

So this is the situation I find myself in -

I got accepted into the SNA pipeline and am supposed to ship to OCS in July. I've been a civilian pilot for over 5 years at this point. 5 days ago I started to feel slightly dizzy with slightly fuzzy vision, never had this feeling in my life. 5 days passed and it was impossible to ignore and would definitely become a safety of flight issue so I went to the doctor knowing this might be the end of my career. They ran me through some basic vertigo testing and troubleshooting. Speculated that it may be BPPV or cervical spine dizziness as I seemed to get slightly better with the Epley maneuver and massaging my very tight neck muscles. They're having me get my eyes checked as well to rule that out. If that doesn't turn out to be the answer, it's off to a neurology consult.

I have already contacted my recruiter and we are going to be speaking over the phone tomorrow to talk about it all.

I understand this has suddenly become an extremely uphill battle however, I'm looking for insight into what this is going to look like moving forward. Is that the end of my Navy dreams or is there a path moving forward and what might that look like, especially with the limited time available if I were to still ship on time (which I find unlikely now)?

Thanks for any help or insight you can provide. I'm obviously pretty stressed and down about his whole deal.

Hello! I’m set to ship out in early June, I got a good asvab score, so I landed a good rate and bonus, physically, I’m nervous. I just passed the satisfactory medium for my plank time, and that’s about all I can do. I’m about 7lbs over weight, but I tape in, and have also lost 30+lbs to join. I cannot do an unassisted push up, nor have I been good at running. I’m confident I can pass the initial run test, just not the usual standard run time/push up amount. I come in at 5’8 177lbs as a female, will just doing what I have to do at bootcamp help me pass the final test?

Got a 1.8 GPA at first school, transferred to another and finished with 3.4. I understand the GPA calculation is cumulative, and I took significantly more courses in my first school so my cumulative is around a 2.0. However, I am about to finish my masters with a 3.6. I know for certain PA's like intel, supply, crypto etc it explicitly states that a conferred graduate degree will supersede non-qualifying undergrad GPAs but is this applied to SWO as well? SWO does not have this verbiage in the program authorization. I've asked people at my command and nobody knows the answer to this. Currently enlisted E5 also.