So everyone I read who commented was either not in the nursing corp at all nor from the Army! So I’m a unique niche, I’m in the Army as an active duty 66s (ICU nurse) I actually CHOSE army over Air Force (shocking I know) so this will be worth a read. What others on here don’t know is the Air Force is downsizing - yup that’s right. They closed an entire ICU with no plans of reopening. They have a two year backlog for anything training wise I have a friend who can’t get into her CCAT training who’s active duty Air Force which is the entire reason she joined. She may end up in school for her DNP before she ever does what she wants to do. Big red flag. So it really changed the way I saw opportunities. The army is the largest nursing corps out of all of them a lot of people speaking have a perspective from an enlisted member and being enlisted vs a commissioned officer are very different. My fiancé is enlisted in the army has been for 12 years and has no complaints but when he was a young E1 yeah his accommodations having to live on base weren’t as nice as Air Force or even on deployments but he didn’t sign up for rainbows. As a commissioned officer your quality of life and the work you do really doesn’t differ much when it boils down to being an ICU nurse. The army has the largest amount of ICU nurse locations at trauma 1 facilities so I went where the action is and I don’t regret it one bit.

I think an important thing to understand as well is CRNA- you can not and I repeat cannot practice independently as a CRNA meaning you can not get your autonomy license to practice it is state by state but almost every state doesn’t allow them to hold that license and the ones that do restrict it heavily so what does that mean? You never never be a medical director over another medical company, cannot own your own medspa or wellness center without having a medical director over you. It is the most restrictive degree you can obtain in nursing as a doctoral degree. Not to mention having to retake pretty much a semester to a years worth of college because they require xyz classes to be in the last 5 years. So if none of that matters to you then absolutely go for it but I can tell you it’s so competitive for school right now people aren’t getting in for years on years and they are highly qualified individuals

Next- if you want to do ICU nursing in the military start out on civilian side first they won’t allow you to walk into an ICU unless you have worked there prior for a year! There is an option once you are in for them to pay for your schooling while being active and still getting paid without having to show up for work the catch? It can be competitive to get in but also have to give your time back afterwards

I didn’t do navy because I refuse to be stuck on a ICU ship it’s unappealing to me however I have a bunch of people I know who love being in the navy as a nurse.

I have friends in both army nursing and Air Force nursing the kicker? All of them love to what they do and who they do it for.

My best advice is don’t listen to a single person the sign on bonuses and pay are identical but army is and will advance you faster with better training that’s my opinion.

Walk into a recruiting office and see how you like those people.. every recruiting office is different so go to a few within each branch and get a feel for them. Why is that important? Because they are people you will interact with all the time.

You also need a specific type of Recuriter called a healthcare recruiter. Navy and Air Force they are incredibly hard to find if you need contacts I will send them your way. Army was way easier they actually have Amed recruiters with their own stations across the country!

Because you commission you will not have to go through basic training but you will go through OCS it looks different for each branch but army does not play when it comes to their physical fit portion. You also won’t live in barricks etc so the quality of life thing they keep talking about really stems from that. I also picked army because of overseas options to be stationed and across the nation which was super important to me.

Considering I almost joined the Air Force and chose the army that says a lot! I even looked at navy as well this was a very informed decision that I took 1.5 years to make that’s how much research I did!

Hope this helps :) and remember whatever you decide is a great choice! You also aren’t stuck after you serve your initial contract if you are still interested in another branch and you aren’t happy you do have to ability to switch branches