laser eye surgery long sightedness

LASIK or PRK for future military career?

I’m planning on joining the US Army when after getting my astigmatism and close sightedness corrected. Which of these laser surgeries would be most effective more me in the long run? I don’t want to go to MEPs and find out I’m automatically DQ’d because of the surgery I chose and I don’t want to go to BCT, get mud in my eye, and find out that I have to get more surgery because the incision in my eye opened up or something.

When you join the Army and go through processing at the MEPS, the medical section is very detailed in what they look at. Any kind of surgery, including surgery to correct vision, is something that is going to require paperwork from your doctor so that your recruiter can request a medical waiver. That by itself is not such a big deal. I requested 2 or 3 of these types of waivers and as long as there was no complications during or after the surgery, the waivers were approved quickly. As far as the incision opening during basic, if you’ve waited enough time for it to heal (which you’ll have to, there’s a six month waiting period after surgery before a waiver will be considered) then there shouldn’t be a problem.
A couple of things to think about as well. One, the Army offers vision corrective surgery for free to soldiers, it’s covered under tricare. You’ll have to go through the usual paperwork stuff and it takes a little while to get approved and soldiers preparing to deploy get priority, but it’s a way to save a large amount of money. However, the procedure that the army offers is not the latest civilian ones you can get, so no Wave lasik, at least not yet. Also, if you plan to try out for flight training, having vision correction surgery will disqualify you from it, so if you are considering becoming a helicopter pilot, don’t do it. Hope this helps.

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