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ASPIES IN THE MILITARY

First Published Tuesday, 13th May, 2008.

It’s not at all surprising that a career in the armed forces might be enticing to an Aspie.  Many will tell you they ‘were made for it’ – the order, the structure, the routine.  Some are known to have fine leadership qualities and thrive in such positions, becoming ‘heroes on the battlefield’, excellent role models for those lower in rank.  Others may thrive under the control of superiors, given clear and consistent direction, able to count on the rules being maintained and upheld, becoming experts in their chosen area, perfectionists in and on the field.

Naturally, this is not the case for all aspies who have embarked on the military path.  We are all complex individuals, and as such, we must learn by trial and error which path best suits our makeup.  Life demands that we accept and acknowledge our capabilities and our limits. For some, the military choice will and should never be an option. What accounts for the making of one man/woman, may be the unravelling of another.

ASPERGER SYNDROME IN MILITARY SERVICE

Roger N. Meyer

Copyright © 2005 All Rights Reserved

Introduction

To the author’s knowledge, Asperger Syndrome (AS) as it affects the military service has not received any substantial public attention prior to publication of this paper.  A fully annotated version of this document will be available in early 2005.

This paper addresses specific aspects of Asperger Syndrome as manifested by personnel in military service.  Background for material contained in this article comes from the author’s own experience in the US Army in the mid to late 1960’s, reports of service veterans later diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome following their discharge from service as well as individuals currently serving on active duty as officers, enlisted personnel, and warrant officer personnel with all US military services, including the US Coast Guard.  Information from these sources has come through postings on Email list servs, personal correspondence, and personal contact.

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There are few written accounts of what military service is like for individuals later diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome.  Two accounts appear in the writings of Edgar Schneider.  He served in Korea.  He first describes military life in chapter 18 of his book Discovering my Autism (1999).  In that chapter he refers to the singularity of purpose and hyper focus that made him an effective soldier performing technical tasks.   In “Values Manifested during Military Service,” the author describes the best time he had in the service was time he spent as an enlisted man.  Although he later accepted a field commission, he alludes to the high level of competence he could demonstrate as an enlisted technician, something denied him in role as an officer. In his latest book Living the Good Life with Autism (2003) on pages 227-122, Mr. Schneider refers briefly to his dissatisfactory experience as an officer including suggestions made by his reviewing commander aware of his command limitations that the warrant officer career ladder would be more appropriate for individuals with his known challenges. The author also refers to the confused and mixed feelings he experienced following his active service as he encountered other former members of the armed services.

In this author’s Portland adult Asperger Support Group, there are six members who are former military personnel.  (There may be more.) One member, now in his early seventies, was an aircraft mechanic and crewman in a B-29 bomber squadron during the Korean War.  A second member saw duty as an artilleryman in Vietnam and like many combat personnel during the early phases of that war, he received an “early out” following his active duty to Vietnam. A third member is a graduate of the Air Force Academy who served in highly technical assignments before he left the service.  He did have command experience, but not in a combat setting.

The fourth man was in the Navy during WWII.  He was a “medical washout.”  He went on to have two, long-time careers and lives a comfortable retired life.  A fifth man spent four years of a Regular Army enlistment as an intelligence specialist in Vietnam.  A sixth is a Gulf War veteran Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant “in for six” in charge of an advance company of 120 men which forged ahead right after conditions ahead had been softened by artillery and air attacks.

Except for the man who “medicaled out,”, their experiences are typical of others who reported good experiences in high-skills-valued military occupational specialties in all branches.  Of the six, two held up well under demanding combat conditions.  The one who “medicaled out” represents the tip of the iceberg of late and undiagnosed former members of the service who didn’t fit.  While some had successful lives following their encounter with the military; many more did not.

For a sequel to this paper, this author has begun to collect service and re-entry histories of adults recently diagnosed with AS.  From only a half dozen histories taken so far, most individuals report successful military careers in which they chose to remain on active duty for substantial periods of time in a variety of roles, some command and some support.

Why Knowledge of Asperger Syndrome is Needed in the Military

Recent Knowledge of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in Military Medicine

Over the past decade, adult Asperger Syndrome has become better known to career military medical and psychological specialists for several reasons.

First, the general media has featured AS prominently in articles about children, and, more recently, about adults who may either have been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder as children, or recently properly diagnosed as adults after a succession of earlier diagnostic labels that never quite seemed to fit.  Career military medical and mental health professionals view the media and read the same journals as their civilian counterparts.

Second, as military service and affiliated health service clinical professionals members identify AS children and adolescents of active service members, best diagnostic practice currently calls for assessment of first order family members of children for likely indicia of autistic trait behavior.  If not found in the biological parent(s), autistic spectrum disorder has been shown to be prevalent in parents’ immediate and extended family members.  Even in the instance of deceased family members, it is possible to reconsider their condition from family history and documentation as connected to or likely “on” the autistic spectrum.  Since many ASD-related behavioral anomalies are quite manifest in the early years, effective early intervention efforts are markedly improved when ASD-specific parent training helps spectrum-sitting parents partner with professionals working with their children’s developmental delays and challenging behaviors.

Third, active military adults, many of whom have been called to full-time duty recently as a result of heightened DOD dependency upon the Reserves and the National Guard may, in fact, have been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome or considered likely candidates for the diagnostic label by mental health providers in the civilian healthcare system.  Even if not diagnosed, if an activated military member reports autistic spectrum disorder in his or her family of origin, the statistical likelihood of the member having trait or full-blown high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome, or PDD/NOS, is significantly higher than with persons reporting no such incidence in their families.

Another reason why AS has become better known to the military medical and mental health system is that recently activated medical and mental health professionals have bring up-to-date civilian diagnostic practices and perspectives into military medicine.  Questions regarding accommodations for disabilities are commonly asked of civilian clinical practitioners.  It is likely that informal accommodations long a part of the military culture may be formalized by more prevalent practice and the “in the records jacket” written entries of recently re-activated mature personnel.

With the graying of the Individual Ready Reserves and National Guard, disability accommodation issues, generally considered of secondary importance in active duty retention and promotion situations, now have become far more prominent as individuals with a very broad range of civilian employment skill sets along with some special needs are recalled to active duty.  When disabled National Guard members arrive with their intact units, it is not possible for the active career services to impress such persons into other regular service units for reasons of military convenience due to the fact that although we may be in a state of war, a full set of draft conditions does not, in fact, exist that otherwise might allow such inividual member reassignment between National Guard and active service unit components.  If their disabilities make them unfit for combat and If their units’ assignment involves combat theatre deployment, National Guardsmen and women must currently be separated from the service.  While fitness to serve may be a medical decision, preserving the fighting readiness of an individual National Guard unit is strictly a command decision, not a medical one.  Guided by advice and recommendations of  their medical corps colleagues, unit commanders make such decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Disclosure is an Issue

In the case of persons called to active duty, some HFA/AS individuals may not disclose their diagnosis or their suspicions even if they have private concerns or are self-diagnosed, often with peer confirmation.  Failure to disclose is attributable to a number of causes.

First, the individual may not be sure that he is autistic, especially if he has not sought a definitive diagnosis by a competent mental health professional experienced with the condition.

Second, Individuals can remain undiagnosed due to systemic problems in the mental health profession.  Many civilian mental health professionals remain woefully ignorant about autistic spectrum disorders, and if the individual seeking an explanation for personally troubling behavior or life-long cognitive challenges encounters professional ignorance, or, worse yet, arrogance, they may still harbor a concern that hasn’t been well-handled by an insensitive mental health professional or a whole string of them.

Medical and mental health professionals who have virtually no clinical practice, and only act as consultants to agencies and benefits systems, such as Social Security and Workmen’s Compensation, and, in increasing numbers, to the medical insurance industry, persist in obsolescent, professionally indefensible conduct attributable to collegial reluctance to call such persons to task for their failure to observe current diagnostic practices.  Other mental health specialists corner a niche market and see only what their particular specialization within the broader field allows them to see.  Unwary individuals seeking and accurate diagnosis soon learn the “street reputation” of such self-proclaimed experts, and avoid them due to their proclivity to label everything and everyone who consults them with their own one-size-fits-all label.

A related systemic problem is that some professionals altogether reject the notion that Asperger Syndrome is a legitimate condition, despite the body of literature differentiating it from other developmental conditions and near-universal professional acceptance of its special features.  Individuals in the military medical and mental health fields treating only members of the service rather than their families are less likely to consider Asperger Syndrome among suspected conditions as it is often associated in their minds only with child diagnosis and presents differently in mature adults of either sex.

Third, the individual may know he is Asperger Syndrome or high functioning autistic (HFA) but has developed comprehensive coping mechanisms and masking behavior to the point that his manifestations rarely “leak out” to casual acquaintances — employers or others who might otherwise be in positions to observe eccentric behavior or thinking and either comment or act on it.  While this is a relatively rare phenomenon, in dealing with highly motivated individuals desiring to serve their country through military service, the AS individual’s single-minded dedication to serve may, under non-stressful conditions, becomes a perserveration that masks their otherwise noticeable manifestations of Asperger Syndrome.

Asperger Syndrome and the Failure of Logical Connections

Even among individuals who acknowledge their Asperger Syndrome, there may be instrumental reasons why they do not disclose.  Some failure to disclose is a function of the different explanatory and logic systems of people with the condition.

For example, they may view serving in the military as such an essential part of their identity that they fail to consider the consequences of what would happen when stress and demands for multitasking and instant-judgment problem-solving suddenly strips away the veneer covering their condition’s ordinary invisibility or characterization as a mere eccentricity.  Another example of an instrumentally related non-disclosure is that the AS individual may not think that their self-determination is either of interest to others or would be considered in the same way they consider it.  Their own unique self-oriented, closed-system logic convinces them of this conclusion.  Hence it doesn’t occur to them that others have their own reasons for wanting them to disclose.

Other ASD individuals may primarily view the Reserves or the National Guard as a vehicle towards government-subsidized education or a supplemental income to what otherwise is very low pay in the civilian job market.  It is easy for others to see the connection between disclosing a condition and the welfare of fellow comrades in arms.  Many AS individuals fail to make that connection, primarily because up to the time of their activation to combat duty, they haven’t thought of the process they’re involved in as “weekend warriors” as relating to much more than fantasy rather than rehearsal for the real McCoy.  Individual incapacity to see the big picture under normal — let alone combat stress conditions — can have tragic consequences.

Many individuals are unskilled in disclosing their condition.  Contrary to others’ expectations arising from the apparent “social competence” demonstrated by some AS individuals, many individuals with ASD have only surface-level skills, developed after patient, long-time rehearsal.  Under non-routine, unpredictable conditions, their poor initiation skills combined with a fear of making social mistakes leaves them unable — not unwilling — to disclose.  Many AS individuals are poor judges of the best conditions supportive of disclosure, or as is more often the case, suppressing the truth when to them — but not to others — “truth must be told.”  Having learned that their inaction as well as their poor behavior choices when they have decided to act generates negative reactions by others, they don’t know how to disclose, and so often they don’t.

Denial

A final reason why individuals with ASD do not disclose their condition to others is denial. Having received the diagnosis from a competent professional, or having been clearly informed about ASD by family members, friends or colleagues, their brittle self-concept and need for absolute control prevents them from taking in the message.  In the past, under the “old military model” it may have been possible for service personnel to operate easily within the clearly designated confines of well-outlined military occupational specialties.  Routine was relatively unchanged between one unit and the next, and while differences in command style have always existed, the rhistoric inflexibility of the armed services in accepting change and the documented practices to always fight the last war lent an air of great predictability and comfort to individuals whose lives depend upon regularity, “the same routine,” and the absence of sudden change.

These are the individuals who report having completed their terms of active service with a certain degree of pride about their military career, whether they spent a single enlistment period or the full hitch.

Those individuals (men) who were married and had children and wives with them during their terms of service were characterized by their wives as rigid, unbending disciplinarians often acting with unrealistic, “wooden” and unreasonably high expectations towards their children, and uniformly uncomfortable in the social presence of other personnel.  Their wives reported that living with them, or when they experienced their returns from duty during leaves and holidays, were times of high tension.  In most cases, the marriages were not described by the wives as emotionally satisfying, nor were parenting responsibilities, even under conditions of limited expectations, successfully carried out by these AS husbands.

Not enough is known about women now diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome to make such categorical statements about their active service careers, although it is very likely that a good number of women have done rather well in the male-values oriented military because of the greater likelihood suggested in some research that their values align more along the values, behaviors and attitudes of the stereotypical male role than the role assigned by society to the “place” and temperament of women in the work force.

Washouts

On the other side, those who wash out early, sometimes not getting further than an enlistment center without seeing life in basic training, AIT, or their first full-duty assignment…these are ASD individuals who recognize the ill-fit between their needs and that of the service.  When this author was in “the old military” in the mid to late 1960’s, he served six months in an armor branch training battalion as S-1 clerk after having first served for 18 months as an instructor to enlisted clerical personnel at the same location.  In both assignment areas, he experienced the washout phenomenon first hand, mainly from enlisted personnel caught in the draft or as entering-phase volunteer recruits.  While most of the individuals found unsuitable for the service were clearly so long before they entered, others — a much smaller number, and among them, most likely some individuals on the autistic spectrum — learned that their expectations did not meet the demands of the service, even surrounded as they were with such regimentation and routine, with no prospect of seeing combat as a consequence of their advanced training.

They simply couldn’t take the change from the routines and predictable conditions that had surrounded them up to the time of entry into the service.  Realizing at last that the military wasn’t the same place,  they did anything and everything to get out.  Looking back now as this author remembers processing their Article 15’s and Summary Courts Martial materials, some of these washouts may not have craved escape as much as they did an absence of change and predictability to what otherwise appeared to them to be a chaotic set-up over which they did not have the appropriate internal tools in place to exert control over behaviors that now could be perceived as predictable Asperger Syndrome response to radical change.

There were junior officers who failed to complete their initial branch advanced training assignments as well.  Along with enlisted personnel separation and discharge papers, this author processed their papers.  A number of well-educated individuals in this group demonstrated little capacity to think clearly or appropriately under the slightest amount of stress or under changed conditions.  This author has little doubt that among such individuals were persons who made excellent paper grades but whose people-skills, as well as other skills essential to command, were more likely related to possible Asperger Syndrome coming into contact with the real-life demands of the complex social and multi-tasking duty world of the officer corps.

Under the old military, and under military assignments and conditions that are clearly unlikely to involve the uncertainties built into combat situations, AS individuals in the past and in the present do “just fine.”  Many individuals in Reserves and National Guard Units who never expected to be on the front line, no matter how far removed from previously well-defined lines of combat, now find themselves pressed into duty conditions where the lines aren’t clear, and where high vigilance is often the standing order of the day.  For individuals clinically defined as hyper vigilant even under non-stressful conditions, the implications of placing such persons in combat conditions couldn’t be clearer.  Rather than knowing what they will do under such conditions, it is best for all dependent upon them to expect the unexpected from them.  And they usually get it.

The New Military Demands Different Skills and Flexibility

Between Vietnam and Grenada

The all-volunteer military brought with it a unique set of demands, but also carried forth many predictable traditional ways of doing business.  During this time, it was possible for individuals to somewhat control the conditions under which they chose to serve, or to select military occupations less likely to experience severe disruption, displacement, or change.  Our country’s much smaller volunteer defense component was able to weed out individuals who showed less promise than that required of a new, leaner structure.  Marginal officers who had somehow made it under the radar and had bumbled along mostly unnoticed or passed on by commanding officers who hoped for the best but realized the least from their performance now found themselves cast out of the service. By the time of the Gulf War, the military had gotten so lean and mean that for the first time, Reserves and the National Guard were called up in large numbers.  Nevertheless, the War was so brief and the return of Gulf War “extras” was so swift that it’s hard, even today, to untangle the complicated web that spelled “major change” that we now see in the active service.

Everything has changed as a consequence of 9/11 and the Iraq War.

One AS Officer’s Story

In the late nineties, this author recalls having received a call for assistance from the sister of former Army major, passed over three times, who was a reduction-in-force cast-off.  He remained largely un-noticed as an enlisted man, and eventually applied to OCS and received his commission.  The author never met him, but was told by his sister and her husband, who became his full-time providers of employment, bed and board, and entertainment, that not only did he suffer from obesity, but also a profound lack of initiative.  It is hard to believe that given their description of his failure to accomplish a minimal level of adult self-sufficiency, even after having been discharged with a nice cache upon his mustering out, that he remained in the service as long as he did.  He was an inveterate gambler, and despite the sizeable amount lump sum of money nearly ($50,000.00) given him upon discharge, he burned through it in less than six months.  He was slovenly and unkempt.  He did not drink.  He did not use drugs.  He didn’t appear depressed, although reports of his conduct indicated massive maladjustment to independent living.  He joined the military right out of college with no prior work history or attempts at living independently.  As an adult, the military was the only home he knew.  When the author last had contact with his sister, she reported they had to fire him from his “make-work” job in the family binding business.  He had also been finally asked to leave their home.  He was unable to offer them any assistance in caring for their children and became another child in the house.   As far as his sister knew at our last contact, he was homeless.

The only way the sister knew her brother was Asperger Syndrome was through knowledge she gained in having married a successful, high functioning Asperger husband herself.  The fact of AS was brought home when two of her three children (males) were diagnosed with AS.  Having studied up on AS, she saw “AS all over the place” in her adult brother’s history and childhood.

This man had been able to get by for 17 years in the active military during its non-draft history following the Vietnam War.  He was finally discharged honorably but for good of the service primarily because his obesity and poor self-care was one issue that couldn’t be overlooked.  He was good at what he did; however, he refused to accept more challenging assignments.  He was a perpetual student, and while in the military, completed his undergraduate degree and earned three master’s degrees.  When he dropped from the author’s sight, he was enrolled as a graduate student studying for a fourth master’s degree at a local urban university, this time having started his profile as a government loan recipient.  He was not working.  He is never likely to work.

He didn’t know the meaning of work in a competitive employment setting, nor did he connect the value of money with what it cost to live.  He had no social skills to speak of.  In today’s military, as well as in the military from which he was discharged, he was unacceptable material.

More Coming Home Means “More In”

In the media, there have been occasional articles about homeless individuals who are Gulf War, and now Iraq War veterans.  One such article in a Portland Oregon paper featured the story of a homeless veteran with Asperger Syndrome.  He was in the Army in the late 1980’s for two years, then joined the Montana National Guard and transferred to the Washington State National Guard serving for an undisclosed period of time.  For most of his adult life he has been homeless, on drugs and alcohol, unable to hold onto work because of what he now recognizes as a lack of soft or social skills, and, of course, has lacked such skills all of his life.  He has many hard skills, good-job, high-paying skills, but not many soft skills.  He was diagnosed with AS two years ago.  He’s now on a rehabilitation track in a number of areas in his life.  The article says it is unknown how many such individuals there are on the streets at any one time.  Tracking individuals reluctant to access the shelters has given us only a best estimate of their real numbers.  Up to half of such homeless middle-aged men may be veterans.  Of course, this author does not suggest that a sizeable number of them may have undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome.  But some do.  With the number of active service personnel now at a recent historic high mark, there may be many individuals like him, just waiting their turn for discharge.

Some Common Characteristics of Asperger

Syndrome Noticeable under Stressful Military Conditions

Commanders in combat theatres know that many individuals demonstrate some of the behaviors listed below.  What should concern military commanders is that manifestations of Asperger Syndrome present more frequently or constantly, with greater intensity, or “clumped together” for longer periods of time, and are generally just “more so” than for the average person, even if the situation is far from ordinary.  When an individual demonstrates a great number of these characteristics during periods of relatively low stress while in a combat theatre setting, referral for comprehensive medical evaluation is especially recommended to prevent disastrous consequences under the highest stress conditions of combat.

No one without medical or clinical license should ever attempt a “field diagnosis” but it is appropriate for commanders to request competently trained mental health personnel conduct a formal diagnostic “rule out” for Asperger Syndrome.  When commanders use the term rule out, this term prompts mental health professionals to exercise a far higher level of sophistication in their evaluations than general requests to “Find out what’s the matter with this person!”

PROBLEMS WITH CHANGE

1. Situationally unsuitable rigid adherence to routine and schedules
2. Out of scale adverse response to announced or sudden changes
3. Unacceptably slow in responding to change
4. Increasingly inflexible approaches and resistance to problem-solving “on the spot”
5. Unexpected rigidity and/or inflexibility when faced with sudden change of commander or supervisors
6. Gradual or sudden unpredictable or unexpected behavioral outcomes to routine commands
7. Difficulty in accepting correction or modifying approach to completing a task according to policy, standard operating procedures, or direct orders
8. Literal interpretation of orders and directives -  “Inability to read between the lines”

PROBLEMS WITH TEAMWORK

1. Individual becomes “frozen” or can’t respond appropriately under high-demand conditions
3. Inability to “read others’ minds” when a security or quick decision-making action is called for
5. Consistently poor ability to anticipate the needs of work team members or others not well known to the individual
7. Problems recognizing people after having seen them only a few times, or even once
9. Adverse, consistently negative response to being interrupted or re-directed
11. Argumentativeness, challenges to direct orders, or inappropriate demands for explanations
13. Gradually or consistently lacking in “common sense”
15. More than usual avoidance of contact with others when not on duty or accomplishing joint tasks
17. Rejection by members of command who rely upon a sense of camaraderie for effective performance of difficult or complex missions
19. Dangerously high vigilance to auditory or visual stimuli  — out-of-scale startle reflex
21. Poor appreciation of danger to self; deficient sense of danger to others
23. Fails to understand when “Enough is Enough”
25. Little apparent ability to provide constructive criticism or positive correction to others

UNUSUAL THOUGHT PROCESS — PROBLEMS WITH COGNITION

1. Arrives at answers to problems which, while correct, could subject others to danger or harm” along the way”
2. Consistently arrives at conclusions without being able to describe steps used to reach them
3. Excessive devotion to ritual behavior of any kind not easily explained by religious or health reasons
4. Unusual difficulty in “finding place” or resuming a task after interruption; preference to “start all over again from scratch
5. Greater than average concentration difficulties or lapses of attention
6. Difficulty generalizing from one specific task to a related one invovling only minor changes in detail
7. Difficulty responding in own words to request to repeat what was just said by someone else
8. Unusually slow response to verbal or gestural commands (not related to a known auditory or vision acuity medical condition)
9. Insistence on telling “all the truth” when “telling it all” is not warranted by the situation
10. Inappropriate perfectionism or attention to detail when “good enough” will do
11. Unusual lack of initiative in starting routine or new tasks
12. Requires repeated step by step instruction for learning simple, new tasks
13. Constantly seeks assurance, acceptance or approval from others for self-directed tasks
14. Failure to “See the Forest for the Trees” — transfixed by details, not  the whole picture

PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL MANIFESTATIONS

1. Unkempt appearance; and poor awareness of physical appearance on others — bad personal hygiene
2. Unusual food preferences that may inconvenience meal preparation or require elaborate  preparation rituals
3. Sleep problems (interruptions, difficulty in falling asleep) resulting in chronic or unpredictable attentiveness during waking hours or hours of duty
4. Unusual tolerance to or reaction to heat, cold, light, sound, touch, taste, smell, pain
5. Hair trigger temper
6. Limited emotional vocabulary and expression (different than being taciturn or stoic)
7. Flat affect — Unable to understand or express a wide range of emotional expression
8. Little or no apparent capacity to empathize with others’ pain, discomfort, or suffering

Summary and Conclusion

The author hopes that this introductory paper to Asperger Syndrome in the military service will sensitize commanders to the existence of Asperger Syndrome in the active military service who up to the present who have eluded easy understanding and who, because of the severity of their manifestations, may, indeed, present substantial risk to themselves and others in combat settings.

Asperger Syndrome, just like all of the other autistic spectrum disorders, or ASD’s, is a spectrum condition.  This means that for individuals with mild or trace aspects of Asperger Syndrome, military service can offer an good quality of life to them as well as provide the armed forces with their special skills and talents, which haven’t been addressed in this paper.

If means can be arranged within a “ready to fight anytime, anywhere military” for individuals with the special skills Asperger individuals are known to have away from a combat setting, they could contribute substantially to the higher level intellectual culture of the armed services by being allowed to serve, as indeed many of them now serve with distinction, undisturbed, undiagnosed, but appreciated.

Even in its milder forms, Asperger Syndrome may be accompanied by known higher prevalence of certain health problems and some mental health disorders of a chronic rather than an episodic or “one time” nature.  Because of the still unresolved relationship between autistic spectrum disorders and these other conditions, no doctrinaire conclusions can or should be drawn to suggest that AS is an unacceptable condition in the armed services.  Like it or not, commanders at all levels may have individuals with undiagnosed, mild Asperger Syndrome in their units.  Rather than sweeping the baby out with the bath water, intelligent, informed deliberation should guide a commander’s decision to pry into the innards of a subordinate’s life, especially when the person appears to be doing well, if not very well, undisturbed.  If an individual in question has served well and with distinction, this is even less of a reason for knee-jerk, insensitive response to a commander’s increased knowledge of this condition.

Knowledge of Asperger Syndrome “in” the command provides no excuse for a witch hunt that could leave the military considerably poorer in having exercised uncritical judgment in declaring an entire, highly varied class of individuals unfit for duty without considering, in each person’s case, whether the ultimate decision to retain or seek separation is truly good for the service or the nation.

Call for Phase II Participatory Research Partners

This paper represents the first informative phase of a two-step research project.  Phase II will solicit information from active, resigned, deactivated, or retired members of the mlitary who have reason to believe they are Asperger Syndrome.  Information will also be solicited from family members of the military services who have good reason to believe a relative who has seen military service may be Asperger Syndrome.  Complete description of Phase II can be viewed by clicking on this link.

A questionnaire for participants is undergoing final pre-testing for both telephone interviews as well as a downloadable written document.

About the Author

Roger N. Meyer is author of Asperger Syndrome Employment Workbook (2001) and is completing a second book on peer-led adult AS support groups.  Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in 1997 at the age of 55, he is an independent disability consultant, advocate and representative for individuals with cognitive and developmental challenges.  He served his full enlisted term in the US Army, attaining maximum allowable enlisted rank.  He saw duty as an enlisted instructor, Battalion S-1 clerk, and intelligence specialist during a special temporary duty assignment to the Pentagon.

He maintains a private practice as a special education parent/student advocate, social security claimant representative, ADA advocate, independent mediator and wrap-around services case manager.  He founded and now co-facilitates the Portland AS (adult) support group, and with a licensed clinical colleague, co-facilitates a married AS Partners Group in which one or both members of the committed relationship are on the autistic spectrum.  A frequent presenter at regional and national conferences, Roger has maintained his interest in adult issues by participating with clinically licensed colleagues in a multidisciplinary monthly AS study group developing best counseling practices for children, families and adults.  He is active in Gresham Oregon  (Portland suburb) non-disability politics, serving as one of his city’s three commissioners on the Multnomah Housing and Community Development Commission. He is acting secretary of the Oregon Social Security Claimants Representatives organization.  Roger is president of the Rockwood Neighborhood Association serving Gresham’s poorest and most ethnically diverse neighborhood, and active in neighborhood and his condominium association’s board leadership.

Link:  http://rogernmeyer.com/adult_acts_and_consequences_as__the_military.html