My original dream was to be a fighter pilot. People here love planes.

Tory Ridgway is in his third year at Embrey Riddle, a top civilian aeronautical university and flight school. It's gonna be a little warm, though. He is studying aerospace engineering, and he's neurodivergent, meaning that the way he experiences and interacts with the world is different from a lot of other people.

It's kind of a strange thing to describe how I see the world, because to me, the world makes perfect sense.

Tory, along with these men, have three things in a call to duty, fierce patriotism, and a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, which they say has made finding their place in the american armed forces an arduous process.

It really is frustrating when we hear of excellent candidates who get turned away or who give up because it was just too hard.

The DoD keeps a list of what it calls disqualifying conditions that are obstacles to joining. Things like eight or more teeth with visually apparent decay, a history of bariatric surgery, lung conditions, and well down the list. There it is, without any elaboration, autism spectrum disorders. Nowadays, it's estimated that about 2% of the adult population would qualify for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Roughly 26% of kids with autism are profoundly impacted, often intellectually disabled. Military service cannot be an option. But for the other three quarters, it's a lot less clear that being disqualified just for being autistic makes sense.

And when, as Rand analyst courtney Weinbaum argues, the military has been having difficulty meeting recruitment targets for the different services.

National security problems are some of the hardest problems we have in this country. It makes no sense to not want all brain types working on it.

Tory Ridgway dreamed of a life in uniform. The son of a navy aviation engineer, he grew up watching his dad work on planes.

Ooh.

Tory.

Even getting the chance to visit the elite blue angel hangar as a boy.

Blue eight.

Little Tory was just enamored by these aircraft and wanted to fly them. But aside from planes, my dad, to me, is what it means to be a man. He embodied discipline. He embodied strength, courage, and honor and the commitment to something greater than myself. Notice that those are the Navy's three core values.

He was just four years old when doctors diagnosed him with autism.

Some of the symptoms that led to that diagnosis included me playing alongside kids, but not playing with them. Other things included something called echolalia, which is where I repeat certain phrases.

Through intensive therapy, Tory began to make progress.

It took therapists who taught me how to read people's facial expressions and innate ability for most people.

By many measures, Tory looks like he'd be a model recruit, an Eagle scout in junior ROTC, and an honors student. When he was 18, he applied for a Navy ROTC scholarship to attend embrey riddle. In exchange for his school being paid for, he would serve in the Navy after graduation. He did disclose his autism in his application. And that day that the letter came, telling him the scholarship was his.

Host unit will be embry riddle. Aaron Cliff University. What do you think about that boy?

His acceptance, though, was conditional, pending a review of his medical qualifications. Within weeks, a Navy approved doctor found Tory's autism to be mild and fully controlled.

So it was a shock when a month later, he received a letter from the Navy saying his ROTC scholarship was now on hold, in part because of his autism.

I more or less had my dream taken away from me.

What's more, the military discouraged him from even appealing the decision.

It didn't feel like I lost funding for college. It felt like I had lost a part of myself and who I was.

Tory did appeal, applying for medical waiver. And while he waited to hear, he received orders to report to boot camp. After all, technically, new student indoctrination, or NSI, even though other paperwork he received clearly stated he could not attend NSI if he had a medical waiver pending. So what did he do?

I still had orders, so I went, even if, even if only to prove that at least I could make it through that. And I did. In fact, a colonel in the US Marine Corps who was in charge of the program came up to me on the last day, and he said, you did good, Ridgeway.

That colonel even wrote a letter reviewed by ABC News recommending Tory for ROTC and commissioned office in the Navy, saying during boot camp that Tory's ability to listen to and comprehend instructions and quickly adapt to new activities was on par with his peers. A Navy spokesperson responding to Tory's case told ABC News, Mister Ridgway reported to NSI while his appeal was pending. Once his appeal was denied, on July 8, 2021, Mister Ridgway was offered the option to depart NSI. However, he requested to continue and complete the training if he wanted to enter another military program. His family denies that they ever received a denial of his appeal and that Tory was offered to depart boot camp. After months of waiting, with no assurances he'd be medically cleared or be able to be an engineer in the navy, Tory decided to withdraw from ROTC.

So much of who I was was based around the navy about being just like my dad, and that was no longer possible.

The Navy told ABC News they do not address a scholarship recipient's ineligibility and that Tory can still pursue enlistment and a waiver.

So the autism numbers in the military are not currently known because there is no data set for this data.

Weinbaum authored one of the few studies that attempts to assess how the military is handling neurodivergence, including autism. She soon discovered a hidden community.

People started calling me and saying, I've never told anyone my diagnosis before. I feel like I have to hide at work, that I have to hide the symptoms that. That lead to my diagnosis. But I love serving my country. And if revealing my diagnosis might mean that I get medically discharged, it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

Frankly, it was frustrating because.

But hiding an autism diagnosis can have extreme consequences. It did for Ryan Horsley's son, Garrison, who said he wanted to enlist in the army after high school.

You didn't really feel you could count on the army to understand what Garrison was about.

That is correct. And, you know, and at the same time, you know, even looking at him, yeah, he seems perfectly normal, intelligent. However, you put a lot of stress and anxiety on him. Things will change.

So you really didn't want him to do this and you wanted to give him support?

Yes, but at the same time, I wanted him to understand that he wasn't going to get medically clear.

To Ryan's surprise, Garrison was cleared and started basic training. But within days, Ryan got a phone call from his son.

He said, I'm starting to freak out. And then that next morning, he said he got locked up. His drill sergeants had locked him up. I asked Garrison, I said, how did we get to this point? And he said, the recruiter hid my diagnosis. And I said, are you serious?

Garrison was soon given a medical discharge from the army. An army spokesperson told ABC News that the US army recruiting command conducted a thorough investigation on the allegations of recruiter misconduct related to the enlistment of Mister Garrison Horsley. The allegations were fully investigated and appropriate action was taken. Mister Horsley's recruiter no longer serves with the US army.

It was pretty painful for him. He kind of. He kind of went into a dark place for a while. You know, he's finally kind of coming out of that still.

Garrison told us it was too stressful to sit down with us to retell his story on camera. He gave his dad the okay to tell his story.

What's the point?

He wants to get across and that you want to get across.

We don't want this to happen with anyone else. People with autism are amazing people, maybe that they have, you know, a place in the military. I think that they're missing out on some amazing people with some amazing talents.

What do you think might have been the outcome if he had not hidden the diagnosis?

I think that he would have been very successful.

We had to do, like community.

Coming up, what happens when an active duty service member gets an autism diagnosis?

So you might have had the option of not telling anybody about this. Did you consider not telling anybody?

And what is the Department of Defense doing to make the military more accessible to people with autism?

So there's some cost benefit analysis going on. In other words, how much would we have to invest best to make this person succeed? Correct.