You know, there has been some speculation by my son’s various specialists (he is HFA) that his father may also have been HFA. And his father retired from military service after 20 years in the Submarine Force. One told me that “the submarine force didn’t find him, he found the submarine force”. My ex-husband most was very comfortable in the highly ordered subculture of this elite force, which had a straight-forward pecking order and standardized expectations. He worked as an electronics technician and eventually earned his MS in Info Systems–the technical side of his brain was highly valued in this capacity. Drilling made even emergencies almost rote. He has never been tested, so this is just anecdotal but makes sense to me.

So I can definitely see a niche for HFA’s in the military. I think there are many already serving.

But there has to be some accountability in the recruiting procedures.

Absolutely. And, of course, an enlightened individualized approach to training, placing, and interacting with HFA recruits. I doubt very much that the Army has any plans to get on that, though.

My son’s high-functioning autistic, and I could see him in the military as an aerial or maritime navigator, a comms specialist, a missile technician in the navy – all sorts of positions where his technical affinities could be put to good use and it would take less time to train a HFA like him than it would take to train a neurotypical recruit lacking the natural geekitude.

You know, there has been some speculation by my son’s various specialists (he is HFA) that his father may also have been HFA. And his father retired from military service after 20 years in the Submarine Force. One told me that “the submarine force didn’t find him, he found the submarine force”. My ex-husband most was very comfortable in the highly ordered subculture of this elite force, which had a straight-forward pecking order and standardized expectations. He worked as an electronics technician and eventually earned his MS in Info Systems–the technical side of his brain was highly valued in this capacity. Drilling made even emergencies almost rote. He has never been tested, so this is just anecdotal but makes sense to me.

So I can definitely see a niche for HFA’s in the military. I think there are many already serving.

But there has to be some accountability in the recruiting procedures.

I don’t think the recruiter cared; the only important thing was to get the kid in. The Army is in such a recruting bind that they will probably find something for him to do

This is exactly the danger. Not only for my autistic kid, but for any kid.

Besides, the methods used to drill training into a recruit just seem to fly in the face of Autism. My son has issues with personal space. I cannot imagine what kind of meltdown he’d have the first time a drill sergeant screamed in his face (and they do this). And things move quick at boot camp. I can’t imagine how they would react to his meltdown. I doubt they’d have time to pull out their accommodation page to make sure they used appropriate ABA techniques with him.

Exactly Kat. My sister has many of the same issues and she would have a melt down if someone was screaming in her face like that.

You’d think that the word “autism” would raise big red flags for a conscientious recruiter, who would then go on to investigate further. But it looks as though people doing the recruiting are not only under unreasonable pressure to get the numbers in, but they’re also conveniently underinformed. I feel for the recruiters in this story, and the others, but they screwed up.

One of the most basic responsibilities of our military is to provide a standard level of care to its soldiers. Putting mentally disabled people on the front lines isn’t fair to them or to the other soldiers who depend on them for their very survival. This isn’t an attempt to say that disabled people are “sub-human,” so don’t even go there. As others have said above, there are likely many jobs that Jared can perform, and it doesn’t necessarily have to mean menial labor–although coming from a blue collar family I have to point out that there is no shame in a hard day’s work, no matter what the task.

If the man couldn’t make the grade at boot camp, he’d have bounced out. If he couldn’t make it beyond that, he’d have been bounced out. The danger that an inherently incompetent man or woman (for whatever reason) would be put in a job he or she can’t do, in the military is relatively very low.

Where, exactly, are you getting the idea that disabled people aren’t “real people”? Please, provide links and (full) quotes.

Because among the liberties granted to each of us by G-d (or whomever) are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are two parties, and two only, who have any say in whether a person enlists in the Army. The person himself, and the Army. Robbing him of his choice (without regard to what choice the Army would have made) is robbing him of a part of his humanity. It offends me.

I should say that I overstepped in that comment–clearly I don’t need to defend disabled people from the people on this board, and I don’t need to play holier than thou. I was just angry at what I took to be the imposing, on this young man’s choice, anger at the war, that is not his fault. Absent this war, the quoted story never gets written. It’s convenient to argue that he wouldn’t have been recruited, but for the war, but there’s no evidence of that. A good friend of mine joined the Marines after high school, despite personal challenges that, while not autism, could be considered in the same league as some of the less severe degrees of autism. That was ten years ago.

The problem appears to lie mostly with the inexperience and lack of nous of the recruiting corporal.