Expert: Howard Lorenz - 3/11/2009

Question
My 16 year old son has talked about joining the military since he was 9 years old.  When he started high school he got an interdistrict transfer so that he could attend a school that had a junior ROTC program (Air Force).  My son is 6'5" and athletic as well as a great student so we were hoping for some type of ROTC scholarship as he wants to be an engineer.  
On Saturday his basketball team was playing in the semi-finals and his coach played him the entire game (I think his height helps!) and the last 2 minutes of the game he complained of chest pains.  After going to urgent care and being transferred to emergency he was diagnosed with Supraventrical Tachycarida.  We met with the cardiologist today and he stated that in a normal circumstance he would recommend no action, just monitoring as this hasn't been a problem for him in the past (and even said he can play in the championship game this weekend).  My son has planned his future around the military so this was such a shock to us.  We did some research and found that this condition is mentioned in the Military Standards for Enlistment.  It states that he needs to not have a recurrence in the last 2 years and not be on medications for it.  Because of this, the cardiologist recommended having an out-patient procedure done (catheter ablation) to ensure no more episodes.  How can we find out if having this procedure would disqualify my son from joining the military?  I would feel better just having him monitored, but he wants to make sure it won't happen again so that his 2 years being episode-free will be done before he is out of high school.  My fear is that he has the procedure and they say that having the procedure disqualifies him from military service.  This is all he has wanted to do and I would hate to see it slip away because we chose the wrong option.  I would really appreciate any help or advice you could give us.  Thank you very much.

Answer
Kristin,

My first concern would be to make sure that this type of condition doesn't have any long term effects for the future. The Basic Training that he will have to go thru is more intense than that of a basket ball game. It will be more devastating to him to get there and have to be discharged because of a underlying condition than coming to terms that he may not be medically fit for service even more to you if something were to happen to him during training.

There are several hundred young troops each cycle that get to training and find that they have a condition that they didnt know about. Hes still young enough that if he needs to be treated ....treat the issue now. If he has to wait the 2 years and be monitored, then its worth the wait to make for sure that he will have a full productive career. In the meantime he can go to a community college and get some education, the Air Force will reimburse up to 10000 dollars of tuition fees in leu of the GI bill the first term, he can then pick it up on the second term.

H