People with glasses in the military?

Just to add to the debate. In the UK any form of eye surgery automatically disqualifies you for ANY military service. The reason for this is that its very new and the long term results aren't well known, plus its still risky and the MOD doesn't want to encourage anyone to get a risky procedure done when they don't need to. Aditionally I believe there are some issues with high altitude flight.

In the UK moderate myopia is no bar to military service in general, provide it can be corrected with glasses. However it is a bar to the Parachute Regiment, the Royal Marines SAS, SBS and of course pilots.

I see no medical reason why glasses would prevent someone in the future from serving on a warship, provided they didn't do any kind of piloting or elite commando work. I do find it odd they haven't found a way to correct myopia by the 27th Century. I suppose its for the same reason that in the original Star Trek they have all these big clunky buttons and dials :)
 
I'm with you there Battle Dog, glasses are ok. However there is a large body of evidence that suggests that laser eye surgery affects both peripheral and night vision making it much less effective than it once was. May as well just wear contact lenses and be happy with it.
 
For a little more info, as of about 5-6 years ago, the USAF began allowing pilot candidates with glasses as long as the vision is within certain standards (20:60 or so) and is fully correctable with glasses/contacts to 20:20. They made this adjustment because they weren't getting enough qualified candidates for flight school and they've decided contacts/glasses are an issue which can be worked around better than other limitations like motion sickness or arthritis.

All US military services have always allowed members with glasses to serve, though certain jobs have been restricted like pilots to those with 20:20 vision or better.

As to who in WC history has worn glasses, keep in mind that someone wearing glasses part-time may be wearing contacts the rest of the time, and anyone over the rank of Major or equivalent is probably old enough that age may have altered their eyesight in the years they've been in the service.
 
Climber, yes that too.

"If it aint really broke don't fix it."

The remedy may do more damage than the ailment. As I said, laser eye surgery is an absolute bar to serving the Britain's armed forces.
 
Could someone please explain how these "eye surgeries" work. AFAIK once you have scorched the backside of your eye its gone forever. :confused:
 
The most popular one now is LASIK. What it does is that a laser cuts a flap on the outside of your eye and opens that flap up, then the laser does its voodoo to correct your vision, and the doctor puts the flap back in place. Just a day or two for the flap to heal up and you are good to go.

Problem with this is that there's always a risk of that flap coming loose and shit, and it has happened before. Which is why LASIK is not waiverable for the high-intensity stuff, like fighter pilot, Navy SEAL, etc etc.

PRK is an older one but it is good to go. The reason is that instead of the flap, they just burn away all of the outside of the eye, then the laser does its voodoo. After that, they put a bandage contact lens on your eye and you have to heal up. But once it's healed up (the outside of the eye grows back naturally), its nice and strong and there's no risk of having some flap come loose.

The reason why LASIK is more popular? The fact that it's only 1-2 days recovery time. PRK recovery time is a good 2 weeks of not seeing anything and doing jack shit (I hated my recovery time, all I did was lie in a bed while my ex-gf put little stuffed animals around my bed for some mock satanic ritual). Plus I couldn't get into the swimming pool for a month after that, and when I finally did I had to wear a dive mask.
 
any type of corrective eye surgery is also disqualifying for West Point (im pretty sure that applies to the other military academies in the US as well)
 
Mad Cow said:
Yeah, there are people in the military with glasses, but it always seemed strange to me that the Black Lance soldier that's checking the cargo pods on the flight deck of the Black Lance starbase has glasses. First, I would think that by the 26th century, eye surgery would be the norm. Second, if it weren't, I couldn't imagine the Black Lance accepting someone with a fault such as poor eyesight.
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Well the Black Lance are a sort of parody for the Nazi SS in WW2 (even down to the black colors and the lightning bolt logo). There were plenty of Nazi's who wore glasses- Heinrich Himmler comes to mind. The idea of allowing only the most genetically superior to survive will result in exceptions due to the foolish nature of such theories- where do you draw the line? Eventually all but one person will be considered inferior- and even his conceived superiority will be a matter of someone's opinion. Even Hitler didn't fit the Nazi ideal of superiority (i.e. Black not Blonde hair, his rumored Jewish lineage, etc.). Given what this man was doing compared to Confed personnel in the WC3 and WC4 games, this soldier wasn't a pilot. Most likely he was a tech along the lines of Rachel, Plyers, or their assistants.
 
psych said:
The most popular one now is LASIK. What it does is that a laser cuts a flap on the outside of your eye and opens that flap up, then the laser does its voodoo to correct your vision, and the doctor puts the flap back in place. Just a day or two for the flap to heal up and you are good to go.

Problem with this is that there's always a risk of that flap coming loose and shit, and it has happened before. Which is why LASIK is not waiverable for the high-intensity stuff, like fighter pilot, Navy SEAL, etc etc.

PRK is an older one but it is good to go. The reason is that instead of the flap, they just burn away all of the outside of the eye, then the laser does its voodoo. After that, they put a bandage contact lens on your eye and you have to heal up. But once it's healed up (the outside of the eye grows back naturally), its nice and strong and there's no risk of having some flap come loose.

The reason why LASIK is more popular? The fact that it's only 1-2 days recovery time. PRK recovery time is a good 2 weeks of not seeing anything and doing jack shit (I hated my recovery time, all I did was lie in a bed while my ex-gf put little stuffed animals around my bed for some mock satanic ritual). Plus I couldn't get into the swimming pool for a month after that, and when I finally did I had to wear a dive mask.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Psych. That cleared things up. :)
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
Even Hitler didn't fit the Nazi ideal of superiority (i.e. Black not Blonde hair, his rumored Jewish lineage, etc.).
Click to expand...

AFAIK, Hitler's hair was actually a brown tint...a fact of which he was quite proud.
 
His hair was a very dark brown and his Granmother, on his mother's side, was Jewish. Since Jewish heritage is passed down the maternal line, rather than paternal, Hitler was technichally Jewish.

Probably the ultimate irony.
 
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