Medical Waiver Denied :(

Apparently after 8 months of constantly bugging my recruiter about my status with the recruitment process i received the news of "your waiver was denied" i asked my recruiter why and he stated that he could not tell me why. I asked him if there was someone else i could talk to or anything i could do to get my waiver approved. Story is 6 years ago had surgery on my shoulder for a torn labrum shoulder stabilizer. No issues since then. Have a clean criminal record, in shape, 4 year degree in Justice studies currently 23 yrs old, ASVAB qualified with a 56. The question is is there anything else i could do? My recruiter basically gave me the entire package and said go somewhere else.....like WTF.

You give up or you keep trying your choice??

Sounds like you were denied by the Bureau of Naval Medicine. Any type of shoulder repair, especially labrum or bankart repair is always a no-go when it comes to medical waivers. Of course it is worth a try for submission, but I have never seen one get approved. Bottom line is that service in the Marine Corps is extremely demanding physically at times, and the Department of the Navy does not want to be financially responsible for any potential injuries that you incur during your service. It sucks for you, but there is absolutely nothing you can do at this point. You are permanently disqualified from ever joining the Marine Corps.

If you really want to serve in the Military, try the Army or the Air Force. Their requirements are a little less strict. It sounds like you would have made a great Marine, there is just no way that can happen now. And you should also know that its not your recruiter's fault. Medical waivers that need to be sent off to Virginia for review take months upon months upon months to come back, and it is completely out of his or her hands as to the response and when it actually does come back. By telling you to go somewhere else, he is doing the best he can for you. If he kept telling you that he might be able to get you in, he would be wasting your time.

Good luck to you, and I do hope you look into other branches because it sounds like you would make a fine service member.

Thank you for the responses. I understand the whole liability concept and how it is extremely demanding, but why not at least have a doctor evaluate the shoulder... I been doing MMA for two years now and have not had any issues. Aside from that I went to the same doctor who did the surgery and he wrote a full borates letter stating I had no issues and was clear for any military duty without restriction. Just not sure what else I could do. Currently going through the process again with the Army but who knows.

Because it doesn't work that way, and because BuMed has a long history of seeing these things, and they are going with 'medical best practice' theory. It also means that if they grant YOUR waiver, then there is no reason for them to not grant other peoples waivers. It's a slippery slope they don't want to go down, since if they do, and 3 years from now you re-injure yourself, guess what? The Marine Corps and them are 100 percent liable and responsible for that injury, since they cleared you in the first place. Meaning they have to PAY you for it, the rest of your life, and fix (or attempt to fix) the problem for free.

To them, the risk vs benefit is NOT worth it.

Keep trying for another service, you'll stand a better chance I believe. And good luck!

May be a case of bad timing on your part as well. DOD is drawing down active duty forces. It's more difficult for everybody to join now; anybody needing a waiver is pretty much out of luck.

Good luck but move on with your life. Give the USAF and USN a shot.

True words right there Top !!!

points well taken, thanks everyone.

Again, believe it or not, we don't like to see people denied. But press on with the other branches. Good luck!

Thread closed.