Verification Problem's-Need help!!

I am currently interested in "going Pro." I have been diving since 1993 and have close to 200 dives. however none have been logged. In order for me to take some of these courses I need verification of this. I attended US Navy 1st class dive school and have this certificate and have my NAUI AOW cert as well. I have also attended USMC Combatant dive course(Closed circuit-drager Lar5) Locked out of two submarines and trained with SEAL team 2 in littelcreek doing excape trunk training and US Army Special Forces in Key West twice doing the same. But have ZERO logged dives. Plus numerous fun dives since. I have emailed NAUI and PADI regarding my circumstances and hope to get a reply. I have spoken to a course director that has had similar issues verifying dive experience. Does anyone have ant suggestions as to what I can do other than shelling out a bunch of money and time? I am currently in Iraq and i'm hoping to start this training in a month. Now I have to figure this out!

Respectfully
Brian

I don't have my instructor manual with me, but PADI says (or used to say) "evidence" of so many dives. In a court of law, testimony can be considered evidence. If I were your potential instructor, I would listen to your testimony, look over whatever documentation you have, and probably welcome you into the DM course.

Since all instructors are different, you might also want to reconstruct a log as best you can from memory. Maybe even get some of your buddies to attest to your experience.

Best wishes, and thank you for your service.

At least those dives you can talk about anyway :shocked2:.

The agency I teach for has special procedures for granting equivalent certs based on military training and experience. I have done this for a Marine who wanted an AOW card. His training was similar to yours. He supplied me with copies of his training certs, a letter from his current CO, and his current physical. I was able to issue the card with no problem. Like Knotical I'd look at what you had, do a face to face interview, and almost certainly a couple dives. Other than that unless you needed serious remediation on skills I'd also accept you. With a son in USAF Intelligence I'm not going to make any US military jump through hoops. And I'll also give my standard military discount on the course of 50%.

I assume the LDS owner or instructor you would have has said you need some proof. If not, I would just ask and tell them of your experience. I have never been actually asked to show my logged dives for any PADI course (at 2 different shops, and including the then required 20 dives for starting DM). They just trusted me.

As I understand it, the CD certifies they are satisfied that you have the required number of dives. I am not sure that they certify that they've seen a log book, though that is of course the usual method.