once his appeal was denied on july 8th, 2021, mr. ridgeway 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 would be medically cleared or be an engineer in the navy, tory decided to withdraw from rotc. >> so much of who i was based around the navy, about being just like my dad. and that was no longer possible. >> reporter: the navy told abc news they do not address the 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. >> reporter: winebaum offered one of the few studies that attempted to assess how the military is handling autism. she soon discovered a hidden community. >> people started calling me and said i have never told anyone my diagnosis. i have to hide at work and the sy