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First I will ask my question, and then I will provide my background information/story.
I am planning to join the Navy as a CTI, World Linguist, or Intelligence - in that order of preference. Will my credit prevent me from attaining those dreams?
I am a 30yo married female; my husband is a Marine and finished serving before I met him. I went to college straight out of high school, but due to parental fighting, lost support for my education. I'm a straight-laced girl, who always got straight A's, never tried drugs, never drank, never got in trouble with the law [not even one traffic ticket], and always paid bills when I was employed. When I lost access to school, I went into a depression and was out of employment for a very long time. Very, long time - meaning 8 years or so, with little jobs here and there. I had people [non-family] who were there for me. I've been living these last two years as a housewife, but I have so much more potential than that. I have severe pride and don't ask people for help, and this is a problem because it affects relationships. My pride also affects my ability to borrow, I've only ever borrowed school loans because I was desperate to be in school. If I'm employed I see a bright future ahead for me because I can get rid of the loans and start saving and investing.
So my uncle visited during this past Thanksgiving. We sat and talked, and I explained how I wanted to be doing something more, and definitely finishing school - so I could pay off my defaulted school loans and defaulted phone bill. He suggested I join the military. I looked at him, confused. "But I thought our family was against the military?" The reason I thought this, although my family never voiced any such sentiment, was because no one had ever served. No one. Civilians through and through.
He continued, and started listing off the different branches. When the name "Navy" dropped from his mouth, I knew that was where I was to be. The rest just fell away into obscurity. Not sure if any of the rest of you ever felt something like this, but I'd love to hear those that did. I felt an excitement, and my body and mind rose out of the sleep it was in and gears moved together. I promptly went down to the recruiting office that following day - the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
I had a chance to speak to a fellow out on the sidewalk as he was closing up the office, but he was heading out of town for something Navy-related. I asked all of the questions I had at the moment and let him be on his way.
I'm overweight - I've been working all of that off. It's no problem to lose the weight, I just have to exercise more and put my body to work. I took my ASVAB this past Monday, I scored pretty high. I spoke to the recruiters today and was assigned a recruiter - and it happened to be the same guy I spoke to on the sidewalk. He remembered me, and was excited because of my score.
I've done a lot of reading - I've learned many things. I've read 30 pages [of posts] of this forum alone, today, if that puts things into perspective. I learned that it's bad to be job-locked, and when I first set out on this journey, I was. But after learning how much of a pain it is to recruiters I looked around to see what else I'd be willing to do, but would still put me where I wanted to be after serving.
Basic picture of me:
- ASVAB: 94
- Medical/Lawful: No problems ever; nothing ever broken/Clean
- Credit: Bad due to unemployment, just finished 9th month of rehabilitation with school loan
- Alcohol/Smoking/Substances: Nothing more than aspirin, and even those less than 4 times a year
- College: 3 years
I welcome any and all hints, advice, tips, and experiences in story form.
At your age and with a weight issue you are way behind the 8 ball as far as other recruits are concerned. I'm thinking in terms of basic and advanced training. You need to join a good gym and have a fitness trainer come up with a written plan to produce the results you need. Don't put it off, get on it now; you need to do it harder, faster and longer then any of the young kids.
Thanks everyone. Did you see my question about credit? I bolded it before I got any responses since I knew my desire for general advice might swallow my original purpose up.
Until they have finished doing your background investigation [which routinely takes 6 months to a year to complete]. If everything else looks good, you enlist, in bootcamp they file the paperwork to begin the investigation and you start the schools. Commonly it is finished while your in school. Having bad credit is not the end of the world. If bad debt was due to gambling, it would be a different story. Gambling debt speaks of your character. Student loans are no big deal.
Honestly the only issue I see is your weight.
At 30 you only have 4 years to get in, you need to drop the weight.
Keep in mind that you have completed 3 years of college. Once your enlisted, go into the ESO office [every Navy base has one] and start scheduling CLEP tests. They are free and you can easily rack-up enough credit hours to finish your first B.A. degree
Nice! CLEP tests are a great idea - I'll look into it.
So there isn't a way to know before I sign the dotted line?
No worries, guys - I've been losing the weight just fine. I know it's an issue and have stopped being physically lazy and my body has responded with relief.
Hey OP! Disclaimer- I am not a Navy recruiter. I am an Air Force recruiter.
Last week a guy came into my office, in tears, he was in the Navy DEP (I'm not supposed to talk to him, but I entertained him for a moment cuz he was distraught). He had a GUARANTEED job as a linguist, and a ship date to basic training. The Navy found out he had PREVIOUSLY been late on his student loans (within the last year), even though they were currently paid off. They pulled his clearance and told him he had to get a different job as he wasn't qualified for a top secret clearance due to his credit issues. He wanted to be a linguist in the Air Force. That's when I told him I couldn't help him and he should join the Navy and crosstrain later. They had told him he had to have clean credit for at least a year.
You might have an issue with that but if it's been a year, then you might not. Good luck!
In the end only a Navy recruiter can answer this for you.
I did not enlist with debt. During my career, my clearance had to be re-done a few times. Along with nearly everyone I worked with. In that scenario CC debt and student loans would not have made any difference. They would have taken into consideration why the debt existed.
My ?'s for you are why CTI...Is it just the chance to learn a new language only? Do you know what the job does and their normal working days and conditions?
I've held a clearance for well more than 20 years. I have also seen a lot of the actions taken in the clearance process, both positive and negative, due to the jobs I've held.
Clearances are always a judgment call by the Central Clearance Facility on your suitability to have access to classified information.
Up to a point, it really doesn't matter what you've done-what matters is how recent the behavior was, whether you reveal it to investigators or they find out on their own (if they have to find out, it appears as if you're willing to cheat on a process that demands trustworthiness and is a clear indicator that you probably aren't a good security risk), and what steps you've taken to resolve it.
If you acknowledge the problem and show real, concrete steps taken over a period of time to pay the debt, you have a chance. Note I say steps taken over a period of time, not steps you swear on a stack of Bibles you'll get around to real soon now that you need a clearance.
If you try to avoid the problem, it's recent, they find out instead of you admitting it, or you've really done nothing to fix it, you have absolutely no chance.
Nothing is 100%. Clearance adjudicators use the "whole person" concept and a set of adjudicative guidelines. They certainly don't go down a checklist and say 'whoops, 500 credit, no clearance' or '800 credit, yep, met it', but all other things being equal: someone with a high credit score and a history of paying debts is more likely to be granted a clearance.
Services apply their own standards to recruits that may be more stringent than actual clearance guidelines, because it costs a fair bit of money to do the investigation in the first place (no it's not $50,000, which is the current urban myth), and even more churn and trouble to put you in a cleared specialty you don't get a clearance for and then have to retrain.
The Army and Marine Corps have by far the fewest cleared specialties. Even most officers in those services are okay with a simple SECRET clearance up to about the Major/Lieutenant Colonel levels. An Army cook? no need. The Air Force and Navy have significantly more clearance requirements across all ranks and specialties...
Go to Security Clearance Jobs Blog and take a look (not an advertisement, it doesn't cost a dime, although they will try to sell you minor products like books and 'guaranteed answers'). Most of your questions will be answered in great detail there for free.
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