But there ARE jobs that are done, onshore, in the Navy. Seems they could have left her in and had her taken one of those. There are Navy folks serving at the Pentagon, for example.
We have some friends whose son graduated Annapolis, and went to train as a Navigator. Turned out, he had an inner ear problem that kept him from flying, but since he'd graduated with a degree in Computer Science, he was sent to DC to work on Computer Security. I don't think he's EVER been on a ship for any duty. Oddly, his brother, who is an AF Academy graduate, did serve on a ship in the Persian Gulf, because he's a missle specialist. Go fig.
Anna Viviano is my wife. I found this website while doing a search for the video of the original interview.
Several things to address:
This wasn’t an issue we were aware of. She’s always been physically fit. During her time with the Navy, she was consistently at the top of her class for PT tests. She’s worked as a life-guard in the past, and she even took one semester of marine physical training, just for the workout. There is no way we would have known about this. I guess the implication is that she intentionally got diagnosed to get out of serving her time. First off, why would she do that during her junior year? Wouldn’t waiting till the end make sense? Secondly, we have nothing against the miliatry. At this moment, I’m giving the Army Band a good hard look (I’m a musician). She grew up with a father in the Army, and so the military life has always been something she’s seen as a positive.
Why didn’t she take a desk job? She tried. She asked to remain in the Navy with some sort of land-based job, and they said it didn’t matter. No one in the Navy can have any touch of asthma.
I was at first angered by the people who said we owe the money to the Navy. The majority of people are on our side, so I’ll take this as a positive, generally.
During her time in ROTC, she took all the classes, served in all the required ceremonies, and excelled. In the event that an individual is fired from a job, the money doesn’t ask for its money back. I understand that the had to stop paying her tuition, even though it put us in a rough place financially. Asking for the money back that they’d invested, though, is unreasonable.
She had a Navy physical before enrolling in the program. This doctor did not catch the asthma. The fact that a different doctor later on said that she did have asthma means that the condition either didn’t pre-exist or that the Naval doctor missed something.
In any case, I remain firm in my belief that this is an outrageous charge. I, of course, am biased.
“SHE didn’t reject the Navy, it rejected her.”
She is unable to fulfill the terms of a contract which she signed of her own free will. In this case the moral of the story is READ THE FINE PRINT. If the Navy didn’t have the clear legal upper hand here, they would not be taking such a hard line. I have sympathy for her, but I won’t condemn the Navy for acting like the military service it is instead of a jobs program like the liberals want it to be.
“But there ARE jobs that are done, onshore, in the Navy. Seems they could have left her in and had her taken one of those. There are Navy folks serving at the Pentagon, for example.”
There is a sea-shore rotation. So many years at sea then so many years ashore. Those guys and gals at the Pentagon have been to sea and are currently on a shore tour. Some specialties spend more time than others ashore, but I know of no specialty, none, where one is guaranteed to spend an entire career ashore. Even the GURLS must be deployable, and an asthmatic is not deployable.
While your friends’ son’s inner ear problem makes him unable to fly, it does not make him a potential medical emergency like asthma does. In a case like your friends’ son, sometimes an officer will be allowed to “lateral” to another specialty. It depends on the medical condition and the officer’s skills. I know of a pilot who developed a medical condition which precluded flying so he became an intelligence officer. If circumstances like those applied here, the Navy would have offered alternatives.