Like most high schoolers, I received my Selective Service number in the mail, then I got the phone call: the U.S. Marine Corps was looking for a few good men and wanted to know if I was one. I just laughed. Not because I’m unpatriotic—both of my grandfathers served in the military and I proudly display an American flag in my home office. I laughed only because Uncle Sam would never want me. I’m a wheelchair user and there’s no place for someone like me in our nation’s armed forces. When I say there’s no place, I mean it. A decade after getting that call, I made a call of my own to the Georgia State Defense Force, a volunteer auxiliary force. When I mentioned being in a wheelchair, their recruiter said simply that he couldn’t see me qualifying to serve.
On one level, I get it. My wheelchair motors mean I can’t sneak up on my wife, much less an enemy position. I know I will never encounter a Humvee modified with a wheelchair lift. Military service is often physically demanding, and I would never ask the military to sacrifice effectiveness to try to accommodate a body like mine on the frontlines.
But is there nothing someone like me can offer? Israel certainly doesn’t think so. On the initiative of an officer with autism, in 2021, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) started its Titkadmu (“Advance”) program. It trained and inducted 52 autistic men and women. This spring, that first cohort completed their army service, and so far, there have been eight rounds of recruitment for Titkadmu. Titkadmu builds off the success of another program, Roim Rachok (“Looking Ahead”), which for the past dozen years has recruited autistic Israelis to work as intelligence officers.
These programs do not reflect military desperation, political correctness gone mad, or the exploitation of disabled people. Roim Rachok was founded by former Mossad personnel who saw mutual opportunities for the military and autistic Israelis. After all, many autistic people benefit from unusually strong “pattern recognition, attention to detail, and analytical thinking.” Accommodation is part of the IDF’s agenda, with the military providing modified living arrangements, social norms, and special equipment to prevent soldiers from suffering sensory overload. Soldiers have proven their worth in return by providing intelligence assessments that others overlook.
Titkadmu participant Ori Weiss said he signed up for the program because he “was excited to join the army like everyone else… they wouldn’t treat me like I was made of glass.” He “wanted to do something significant and contribute as much as possible”—and was ultimately assigned to “the position I dreamed of.”
The service of disabled soldiers has become even more significant since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Among the Israeli civilians killed by the terrorist group were thirteen year-old Noya Dan, who was on the autism spectrum, and sixteen year-old Ruth Peretz, who went to the Nova music festival as therapy for her cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. Soldiers in Titkadmu and Roim Rachok will leave their service knowing that they did more than just open space for people with disabilities in IDF. They will have helped keep Israel’s disabled civilians safe, too.
I can’t help but feel a tinge of envy. In the words of IDF captain Udi Heller—who is autistic—it took “a lot of courage to get this project off the ground.” “Not every army or chief of staff would do this.”
Would the U.S. military? The answer probably won’t matter for me, given my age and the civilian life I’ve grown into. But there are constant reminders of opportunities in life I could never have because I was categorically ineligible for military service. I will never be eligible for the many public benefits available only to veterans, ranging from housing assistance to health care to elderly support to education. (These sorts of benefits would actually disproportionately benefit disabled Americans—who disproportionately fall behind economically for lack of access to these resources.) I wonder whether future generations of my family will be eligible for the USAA policies I owe to my father-in-law’s time in the Marines and National Guard. Every time the flag is presented with a color guard at a sporting event, it’s a reminder of the pride those of us with disabilities could share in more fully.
I hope that this can change. Over time, the military has made room for waves of previously excluded Americans to serve. Disabled Americans like me could someday have our own heroes like the thirty women who recently became the first female Army Rangers. Or like Henry O. Flipper, the first Black graduate from West Point, which now gives an award in his honor to the graduate who shows “the highest qualities of leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties.”
What exactly would service look like? Combat action is likely forever beyond the reach of a wheelchair user. But surely many of us could contribute in the same way as the brave autistic men and women of IDF. Difficult cases may prevent most forms of service, or even all, for potential recruits with major mental or learning disabilities. The need for accommodations could sometimes become so great as to distract from the military’s core missions. There is wisdom in starting off with the pilot-program approach taken by Titkadmu and Roim Rachok, focusing on disabilities that may be more readily accommodated and military support needs.
Still, even a modest experiment could enable the military and disabled people to learn together what is possible. Just fifty years ago, Americans could not imagine a wheelchair user serving as a public school teacher. How far we’ve come—and many of us are forever grateful to our country for the opportunities we now enjoy. Will the day come when we can repay something of that debt through military service?
