I know this is a late post and I do not know if you are still going after enlisting in the Army, Scuba. I will give you some insight to recruiting as a ex-recruiter.
When a PR " Prior Service " guy walks in the office most recruiters will expect you to do all the work. If you demand your recruiter to do the work it will not get done. A lot of recruiters do not want to put in PR for a few personal reasons. Me personally I didn't care what you were or who a contract is a contract from there on you prove yourself to the Army, not me.
Did you receive anything in writing or were you told by a MEPS Doctor that you were disqualified? did your recruiter tell you that you were? also where were you trying to join from? that has a lot to do with PR people. There is a lot that I can help you with if I had more to go off of like how long did it take for them to get back to you about being disqualified, did they disqualify you on the floor at MEPS, did you have a consult threw MEPS at a local hospital near MEPS?...etc
Can you appeal it? yes I have seen it done with a guy in our office who was disqualified for having pins in his hips. The way we went about it was proving threw the civilian channels that he can perform in the military with no problems.
The way it works with medical at MEPS is like this, so if this did not happen to you then you were probably being tossed around and given bad information and still have a chance in getting back in.
You filled out a DD form 2807-1 and DD form 2808 you answered yes to back pain. Red flag! not a big deal who doesn't have some minor back discomfort. The next step as a recruiter is to contact the applicant before submitting those two forms for one of many reasons but the main one is we know if we send that up it will get flagged. We will ask the applicant what kind of pain it is and try to rule out that your just not putting something down just because it's discomfort and not a serious condition. I've seen some funny stuff while I was out there. If you the applicant told us it's serious and that you have seen a Doctor for it then we will not even submit it for we know you will need a MEDICAL READ for your back. How do we do that? threw your medical records that the Marines lost well how do we do that without medical records? easy you write a statement and sign it, we send it up and try to get you approved to come in and physical at MEPS to let the MEPS Doctor see you and schedule a CONSULT with a local Doctor to get a 2nd opinion or they can come back and say we need more then this to justify us for sending him to MEPS, so what do you do? you go to a local hospital and tell them you are going into the military and you need to have your back checked since you had back problems in the past he will do a physical on you and put his opinion on some forms and those forms we will send to MEPS as a MED READ and they can approve or disapprove you from there most likely if what you say about your back " that it longer bothers you " the doctor will agree with you and they will approve you to come and physical and the MEPS Doctor will still send you to consult with a local Doctor. You go home and wait for a yes or no and usually it take up to two to three weeks to get an answer. If this does not seem familiar to you then most likely your recruiter feed you some BS.
I know it may seem crazy that a recruiter would BS you but trust me it happens. Most of those guys never wanted to be a recruiter and they hate their life's as a recruiter. If your recruiter was fat he sucked and lacked self discipline. I've put in guys who came in our office saying that another recruiting office said they were disqualified when in fact that recruiter never submitted anything and based of his own opinion disqualified the applicant himself. A lot of recruiters thought they were the approving authority. The only person in recruiting who can disqualify a applicant for a questionable condition is a MEPS Doctor. Some cases we can as recruiters if it is noted in the regulation like an applicant who has no legs or missing multiple fingers or is deaf or blind...etc
My .2 cents to you is go to another recruiting office and tell them everything and see what they do if nothing go to another recruiting office...etc if you say you want to go SF as bad as you do then this should be no problem for you.
Good luck brother hope this helps you out a little.
I got carried away a little bit here
-Ski