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Old 03-01-2017, 15:24   #1
juniorg
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Injured foot shortly before ship date

I am in a tricky situation. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the internal workings of the Army has some advice.

I am scheduled to ship 13MAR2017 to OSUT (18X).
A couple of months before my ship date I started having pain in my forefoot. After scaling back my training (rucking, running as per various prep resources) with only minimal relief, I went to the doctor.

About a month before my ship date I informed my recruiter, who said to just keep him updated and that if it doesn't improve, I might get pushed back.

Upon talking to the leader of the recruiting station today, he informed me that it was too late to push anything back and that I definitely will ship 13MAR. Furthermore, he assured me not to worry, that now is the time to "Let the Army take care of me" and that "Basic Training is designed to heal and prepare you for SFAS" (which goes against everything I have read so far in reputable places like these superbly informative forums).

Having gone through the medical screening at MEPS before, I can't see how they would even ship me out, having gone to a doctor for this problem.

I suggested to the recruiter that it might be prudent to try and push things back in accordance with my doctor's recommendations in order to ensure success in the pipeline or even getting cleared at MEPS.

My doctor advised me to stay off the foot, and that if there is no improvement within a couple of weeks, additional steps might be necessary.

Any advice on how to handle the situation?
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Old 03-01-2017, 15:55   #2
scooter
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Basic training is not designed to heal you, your recruiter does not have your best interests at heart. If you go to basic with a nagging injury it will worsen, and you will spend months on hold until it gets better, if they don't just summarily discharge you. You don't want to go down that road.

I am not sure of the mechanism you need to employ, but you need to 1) stop working out, and 2) keep exploring ways to delay shipping to OSUT until you are healed. 11X OSUT will only make it worse, trust me on this, I went through OSUT with a minor stress fracture and it took 2 years to fully heal to the point it didn't bother me.
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Old 03-02-2017, 11:21   #3
juniorg
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Thank you very much for the quick response, scooter!

You confirmed the general feeling I had.

After having a conversation with the CO, it looks like I will be able to renegotiate the contract in order to move the ship date.
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Old 03-02-2017, 18:55   #4
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Good.

Basic Training quite frankly isn't all that hard, but it will wear you down. Any great deal of fitness you have above your classmates will kind of diminish to their level... you will run and ruck at their pace and load for 13 weeks or so.

So, with this in mind, STOP KILLING YOURSELF. It takes waaaaay less time to get back in shape than it does to recover from a nagging overuse injury. Take it from those of us that have been there. You are doing the right thing, don't listen to the asshat who told you that you aren't. You will get one shot at this. Do it right.

Good luck to you, make sure you come back later and tell us how you did. If you don't make it through SFAS for some reason you may be able to go back, and even if not, you can make a difference in the Infantry.

Good luck.
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Old 04-28-2018, 12:33   #5
juniorg
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Update

Good afternoon,

Update: The way the situation turned out was that I was dropped from the DEP due to the injury. After healing up, I started the process to enlist again. After nearly a year, I finally received a waiver for the injury last week and should now be able to enlist again.

The trouble is, it looks like I will not be able to get an 18X contract, due to the waiver. Reading some threads on these forums, some were saying that it might still be possible, so I will try and negotiate when I go to MEPS this coming Tuesday. If not, I am looking to pick up an infantry contract, if available.

I have two questions about this:

1. Does this seem like the best course of action?

2. How long of a (non-18X) contract would you advise I commit to, if I want the chance to go to Selection?

Your advice and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
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Old 04-28-2018, 17:07   #6
Scimitar
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Always hard to answer, as things change all the time.

But my thinking is, an injury waiver might not be the barrier to 18x here.
IIRC it might be needing a second waiver for jump school.
What contract code are you going to MEPS with?

Some other possible variables are
1 - Your recruiter doesn't want to do the extra paperwork for jump school or 18x
2 - There may not have been 18x contracts immediately available in the system when you did your enlistment paperwork, as the 18x pipeline is often pushed out more than 11B OSUT.
Your recruiter would need to call the Rock and have an 18x date released for you.
He may not know this, or he may not want the hassle.
3 - You've already been dropped from one contract, they may be just trying to ship you as quick as possible, maybe you're a flight risk. :P

Give me a little more info, and I might be able to dial this answer in.

To answer your second question, your initial contract length has little bearing on your 18 packet. If you are selected at SFAS, you are required to sign an extra 4 years from memory? I think I have this a little turned around, but the principle's likely correct.
The Green Monster asks you for extra time when they want it, you're remaining TIS is of little concern.
But be aware things change, my memory is fuzzy, and I am far from a 79-Romeo gawd.

More info please.

S
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Last edited by Scimitar; 04-29-2018 at 00:21.
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Old 02-04-2019, 07:11   #7
juniorg
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After many more months, I am extremely happy to be able to post another update.

I ended up enlisting 11X, got after it during OSUT and picked up an 18X contract shortly before my Basic graduation. I graduated OSUT at the end of August, followed by Airborne school toward the end of September.

I went to the first available SFPC class in November and just now returned from SFAS 03-19.

Result:
Selected
18E

At the end, all the hard work, the hours of writing memos and acquiring notes from physicians, calling different recruiters etc. paid off.

My advice to someone in a similar situation:

1. Find a recruiter that is willing to work with your case and that stays motivated to do so. Call around. They are out there.
2. Get all the documentation they ask for. If they ask you for something, it's as if they give you the ball. Run with it as fast and far as possible, until you kick it back over to them. Then focus on other stuff until MEPS works it out and requests the next thing.
3. Never quit. Turns out, many of the guys I went to selection with had had similar stories trying to join. Those that stayed relentless, ended up where they wanted to be.

Thank you for the great resource these forums are. The advice I found here proved invaluable throughout this process. I look forward to the next 25m target.
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Old 02-04-2019, 17:56   #8
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^^^ Fantastic! Now do pushups...
Don’t lose sight of the target.
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