And now for something completely different ...

Here's some recent … drama? That's not the best term, perhaps another will come to me as I'm writing. [Later: "flash-in-the-pan excitement that has since subsided somewhat but I'm still interested" - maybe I'll just stick with drama].

A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to become a commissioned officer in the US Navy. This had never occurred to me before in life, never. I have been thinking about seeking employment at the VA ever since I went to that conference a month ago in Wilmington, but this would certainly be a serious step further. This is how it happened:

I did an initial online job search for "social work jobs in [New City]." I'm not going to go back to work until probably September - when we've settled in and unpacked, have a sense of Matt's evening schedule (re: meetings and contemporary worship on Thursdays) as well as Simon's school stuff (The charter school where he just wrapped up Kindergarten started at 9:00 a.m, but NC Public Schools typically begin at 7:45. Argh. And if I'm working full-time, he'll need aftercare, and David would be in care full-time; there's a preschool at the New Church but it's not full-day). So, I'm not in a rush. But I heard from others at the conference that getting hired on with the VA takes a looooong time, so I thought I'd at least start looking.  

[There's no full-out VA Hospital in the New City. But there's one level of outpatient care (including mental health) there, and another level in the Next City Over].

So anyway, I searched for SW jobs in New City, and the first ad to come up was for a discharge planner at a hospital. I'm relatively certain I'd rather mop up the Emergency Room restrooms at a hospital, than make discharge plans for the patients there. My first job out of grad school was working on an inpatient psychiatric unit in a small rural hospital, and among myriad other tasks, I did discharge planning for our patients. In most instances, this amounted to one meeting with the patient's family to discuss plans for their return home and follow-up mental health services with the applicable county mental health department (this was before everything in NC was privatized, which the then-governor has admitted was a big mistake). And heck, the nurses did most of that. When the plan was for residential or inpatient substance abuse treatment, or assisted living or a nursing home, I kicked into gear. It was rewarding to see the patients leave for the appropriate type of services, especially drug treatment, but everything involved a great deal of phone calls, paperwork, and waiting to hear from facilitates. The other social worker (for the medical floors of the hospital) loved doing it, and good for her, but I detested it.

So anyway, that was the first listed job. The second listed job was to be a clinical social worker in the Navy, and the 4th was a similar job for the US Air Force. Those are interesting by their own merits, certainly, and certainly more so in comparison to the others. I filled out the online forms and waited for a call. During those 48 hours or so, my overactive imagination went into overdrive, and in my mind I was already wearing the uniform. As best I understand it, the process for both is that once you're (physicians/chaplains/attorneys/psychologists) accepted you complete Officer Development School (ODS, that's for the Navy, the Air Force is something similar but not quite the same), a five-week combination of physical training and "indoctrination" (history, military bearing, marching, etc) in Rhode Island (Navy) and Alabama (ASAF). You graduate a commissioned officer and then go about your work, which I'm imagining in these instances (in the New City, where there are no military bases for at least a couple hundred miles) is working with families of Sailors and Airmen who are currently stationed/deployed elsewhere. 

The main obstacle thus far has been that I've been unable to determine exactly what the jobs are and what the chances are that it might involve being deployed elsewhere for great lengths of time. One of my professors in undergraduate and grad school (Hi, Chuck!) was a social worker in the Army for 20 years; I think he went in with his MSW and then retired with a full pension, then got a Ph.D and began teaching. While I *certainly*certainly*certainly* realize that all military families live with the possibility and reality of deployment (see "Justification by Note-taking" at the other blog), I just want to make an informed decision for my own family, as we are all volunteers these days. It's not that I wouldn't mind doing it (join the Navy, see the world, after all), but being away from home & family that long is … sub-optimal, for me. *Yes*yes*yes* military families are split up all the time, but i personally, at this stage in life (and thanks to those before me who have volunteered so that we don't have mandatory service) I would not choose that. It would be a privilege to work with and support family members, I would be committed to doing the training, and working my butt off here at home in NC to work with military families, but deployment would not be a choice I would make. 

But.

Thus far it's not going too well. The Navy Healthcare Officer Recruiter (I believe is the title) called me back at the end of the second business day and went through a bunch of questions with me. The final question (for me) was if I currently (or in the past year) have taken medications for any ongoing condition; and of course the answer for me is yes. That was an immediate disqualification and the end of the conversation. I thought about it for a few days, talked to Matt about it, and decided to at least try to do a little follow-up, again, to find out more about the actual job. There are waivers for certain medical conditions, but my understanding is they are infrequently and somewhat sporadically granted - i.e., one person can get a waiver for a certain medication while another  person who appears to have the same condition & meds (but probably, a different history?) might be denied … I get it, I do, I'm assuming the thought is, you are first and foremost and officer in the military and you have to be able to do all the things all the other officers can do. 

But it was odd/disappointing, because being on these meds has never prevented me from doing anything, you know? On the contrary, it has made life as we know it possible - I sleep better, I wake up with purpose and resolve, I am able to focus on the task at hand. And I would offer that being on meds provides me with a form of empathy for the clients I work with - side effects like dry mouth, social stigma about taking meds (you will notice that while I've talked a lot about ADHD and Adderall, I am on other meds that I've chosen not to talk about). When I tried to follow up I somehow ended up talking to a woman in South Carolina, who provided a more detailed explanation that was a good "Navy explanation" but was not a good "clinical/Joanna explanation," but again, I feel I am not talking to the right person to find out what the job is. I do not have what it takes to be a Soldier/Sailor/Airman/etc., so I'm not trying to do that. But I am a hell of a social worker, I can do that, so I'm trying to do that. So I will continue to follow up a bit more, but in the meantime I'm exploring other avenues. 

(Anyone who has experience in these matters, feel free to comment or e-mail me. I have found lots of blogs by other professionals who have gone through the training and are now officers, and I've found lots of forums for discussing getting into the military when you've been on medications in the past. But the latter have mostly seemed to involve young people looking to enlist, and the standard advice seems to be to lie about the meds, and that's not what I'm looking for, so some combination of these two would be helpful).