Do you have to have good vision to get into the coast guard, and if you do then can you get laser eye surgery?

Question

specificly to be a rescue swimmer

Answer 1

Nipper,

Up until recently I served in the Navy as a physician for about 5 years, and am now an ophthalmology resident in a civilian training program.  However, I'm not familiar with the regulations for the Coast Guard, or specifically for the rescue swimmer program.

As far as basic qualifications for entrance into the uniformed services, it is important that your vision can be corrected to 20/20 with glasses or contacts.  If you're vision is correctable to 20/20, but you require a strong prescription, you could still probably get in but you'd need some extra paperwork called a waiver.  That would be done as part of your entrance physical.  I believe all branches of the service will now accept folks who have had laser vision correction, but it may delay your acceptance while they review the documentation (a close friend was delayed about a year entering USCG OCS for about a year while they reviewed his waiver for LASIK).

With a little searching on the internet you can probably find the exact visual acuity requirements for the USCG and the rescue swimmer program.  I bet you could even find phone numbers to the school where they train the rescue swimmers.  Recruiters can be a good source of info too, but remember that even very honorable recruiters have to meet a quota so "trust but verify."

Good luck