We used DODMERB Consultants for our DS who had a back injury from weight lifting. He was waitlisted at West Point, however received a waiver and earned a 4 year AROTC scholarship and is about to start his Sophomore year in a few weeks. As for Dr. Merchant he was definitely not very quick to return emails and or calls, however we were not completely ignored by him as many of you are claiming. It was quite frustrating dealing with his lack of, how should I say "Sense of Urgency" that we felt with so much on the line. We ended up doing our own reacher and found a spine surgeon who was a retired Lt. Colonel from the Army and a West Point Graduate. This Doctor was the guy who granted the waivers for back injures at DODMERB before he retired from the Army to just work on his surgical practice. He did a complete exam and then wrote an amazing letter of his factual findings and then of his opinion on our sons ability to make it physically with the army. It was this letter and this letter alone that was the deciding factor in getting the waiver granted. Dr. Merchant reviewed the letter and said it was good to send to DODMERB but he really did't do much for our case. We just could not sit around and wait for him to strike and took matters into our own hands. Was it a waist of money? Well the answer is YES and NO. Yes because we did most of, if not all the work. NO because our DS still earned the scholarship and we didn't have to come up with the $285,000 for his college, so we are still way ahead. My DS is living his dream out in real life, loving AROTC more than we could have imagined and won Top MS-1 Cadet for his Freshman year in his Battalion. I would not change anything we did to help him, because we knew we had tried our best and for us we got lucky and it worked. Best of luck to all who are fighting the good fight and may your DS/DD get to live out their dreams as well.