Expert: Howard Lorenz - 10/22/2007

Question
My fiance is considering joining the military and we had a few questions.  First off, he was born with a medical condition called Brachial Plexus which limits how far he can extend his right arm.  He can extend it 90% of the way so it is almost straight and if you didn't know he had this condition, you would not notice anything different about him.  He hasn't found that it interferes with any aspect of his daily life.  Will having this condition disqualify him from being able to join the military?  Also, we are engaged right now and someone told me that you cannot get married after he enlists.  Is that true?  Is it better to get married before or after he enlists?  Thank you for any help you can give.

Answer
Hi Jenn,

I am not sure about this condition being a disqualifier or not. Its not one that I heard of. I guess that the question that I would have for him would be, how many pushups can he do because, in BMT you will do plenty of them. There are alot of conditions that folks have that when they join the military, they find that it does interfere later on. Right now he is not doing push ups every day or weight training. If her is and it doenst bother him, then I would say that it wouldnt be a big deal.

The medical officer at the MEPS is going to make the decision. The other question, Who diagnosed him with this condition. If his mother told him that this is what he has, because a family dotcor said "It looks like" but it has never been in the personal nediacal record, then he doesnt have it. It only counts if he had a problem and it was annotated in his medical record as treatment for...

The medical questionaire is specific in the questions it asks. These are the only things that the DOD is looking for. If it isnt on there, dont answere the question. If the services annotated every little quirk that people have, we would have no one in the service. Just answere the questions on the sheet, dont add to it.

As for getting married, Now what I would do with my applicants is if they werent already married, I would tell them to hold off. Sounds like Im trying to divert a happy day, but there are reasons. If he is single and under the age of 23, no credit check is required. Married, its required. Now most young folks have either no credit or bad credit. The military only looks at the Bad credit. So if either one of you have had some trouble in the past, then  that is the reason to wait till he returns from Training. Its less paperwork and less hoops to jump thru. My advise is stay engaged for now and get him in the military first.

I hope that I answered you questions, if you have more hit me again....

HW