This blog is now officially up to date. Anyway
So I went to the doctors office today. Great fun. Let me begin. We arrived at the doctors (Pediatrician to be exact since I'm still under 18) and went into the well child waiting room. A lady came in and informed me and my mom that this would probably be my last visit since I was almost 18 making me feel even more out of place among all of these little kids and crying babys.
Finally they called for me and we went into a room and one of the nurses came in and asked what we were here for today. I gave her the spill on what I needed. (3 blood pressure readings under 140 over 90 and a note listing the readings and saying I was good to join the military) She looked at us funny and took my blood pressure. 126 over 73. Good, the aspirin is working. She then took it again. 129 over 77. Again, excellent. I look at her and she looks very worried. I ask her whats wrong and she says she'll be right back and quickly leaves the room. Here we fucking go. Another (pretty) lady comes in and begins taking my blood pressure in a slighty different way. She gets a 134 over 81. Still ok. Next a 138 over 84. Shit. It is at this point that I realize neither of the nurses wrote the readings down. FUCK.
The real doctor (Doctor Price) then comes in and we tell him whats up. I've seen this doctor before and he was pretty cool. He even showed me how to equalize the pressure in my ears or some shit and drew a diagram of how your ear, throat and nose are connected. Pretty cool. Anyway, after giving him the run down he takes my blood pressure on my other arm. 130 something over 80 something. Still fine. He then drops a bomb and says "Ok, so now I guess you just need to make two more appointments and I'll write that note." I inform him that his guess is FUCKING wrong and tell him that the MEPS doctor told me he would just have to get 3 good readings and write the note. Not 3 reading on seperate occasions.
Dr. Price looks absolutely puzzled. It is at this moment that I realize that I am, once again, fucked. He eventually agrees to take 2 more readings and guess what? 142 over 83 and 144 over 82. Apparently I can't catch a fucking break. I inform him that the nurses took several good readings and he then informs me that he is King Shit of Turd Island and that since he didn't take the readings they don't count. All coolness is at this point revoked.
As we were leaving I called my recruiter to leave him a message telling him that I got fucked at the doctor. Later in the day he drops by my house and while not nearly as pissed as he was at the MEPS he still seemed pretty frustrated and just told me to get it squared away and we would get down to MEPS and get me in the Army ASAP. At this point my $20,000 bonus is still gone but there is still a fairly high bonus out for the 11X(Infantry) MOS and if I can get down there and enlist next week I'll be able to snag that one and ship out Friday the 5th.
Oh well. I guess I'll try again on Monday with Dr. Campbell. He's known me since birth so maybe he'll cut me some slack.
Friday, September 28, 2007
To the MEPS...(continued)
DD eventually stands up and announces that he's ready and if anybodys going to try to kick his ass, then do it now. Everyone laughs and we head back out to the lounge area to wait for the bus. We turn in our cards and head out to the bus, or the 3 things that are a mix between a bus and a passenger van. They're actually really nice and the ride is over before I wanted it to be.
We all get out into the pouring rain and head to the front door. It's locked so we wait. Eventually a Marine comes out and gives us the rundown. He tells us what the day is going to be like and tells us to tuck our shirts in or fucking leave. We obide and he lets us in. We head down to our branch of service and as soon as I walk into the Army office I see Zidane (from the ride down to Nashville) getting chewed out by some civilian. He basically ignores the guy which only pisses him off more. I get my packet and cute little name tag and start a pretty shitty day.
We go into a classroom and a Navy guy (I think) comes in and goes into detail about whats going to happen and what to do and not to do. All of the people (including me) who have GEDs are told to stay behind and he sends everyone else to the next step. We take the AIMS test which is to see if we're as big of fuck ups as the Army thinks were going to be and then catch up with everyone else. As we're all waiting for our eye exams a very ugly lady comes around and takes all of our blood pressures. When she gets to me she pumps the cuff up like hell until it explodes in my face, scaring the shit out of me. She then retrieves what appears to be a thigh cuff or something and places it on my arm. She pumps it up and puts a sticker in my packet and tells me I need to lower my blood pressure. Get out of my fucking face.
After the eye exam, and hearing exam we walk down the hall into another classroom. We do a bunch more paperwork about any medical problems we've had in the past and we have our breathalyzer test. She sends everyone else on their way and tells me to stay behind. Fucking great I thought, I've failed the breathalyzer in some mysterious way. Turns out she wanted to take my blood pressure again.
She starts the machine up and walks outside for a minute. I look at the little screen and it says something like 132 over 80. She comes back about 5 minutes later and starts the machine again, and leaves. This time it was 138 or so over 85 I think. The third time I ask her if she could actually stay and write down the reading this time. She then gives me a mean look and tells me to run downstairs to the control desk and tell them to warn me. Oh yeah, and she gives me 2 minutes. I run downstairs, the Marine from outside is there and he just laughs and sends me back. I run back and she immediately hooks me back up in record time and takes my blood pressure again. 150 something over a high 80. Fuck. She writes Elevated BP in my packet and smiles at me like the bitch she is. I know deep inside she has just fucked me.
I catch up with everyone else and have my blood drawn and do a urinalysis and sit down with a doctor to go over my medical history. I'm a GO at every station. Next is the physical. 8 of us go into a room and strip down to our underwear and are weighed. I'm overweight of course and have to be taped. I pass. I then go into a room with a doctor and he makes sure everything works and touches my balls. Yay.
He then sits down and looks through my packet. I had basically forgotten about the blood pressure bullshit but it was still in my packet unfortunately. He then informs me that I'm disqualified because of my blood pressure. He asked me if I was just nervous or something and I told him about the whole ordeal with that woman and he sighed and said there was nothing he could do. He wrote me a note to take to my doctor and said that all I would have to do is get 3 good (under 140 over 90) blood pressure readings from a private physician and then return to MEPS with a note saying I was good to go. Fucking great. Im glad thats ALL I have to do.
I walk out of his room and put my clothes back on and catch up with everyone. If I hadnt been disqualified this is the part where I would go into the Army office and pick my job, then go swear in and go home. But why the fuck would that happen. I go into the Army office and inform a guy wearing an ACU that I've been DQ'd for blood pressure. Hes really professional about it and tells me that it happens all the time and says the same shit the doctor did. He then takes my packet and has me go down to finger printing so that when I return I wont have any more bullshit to go through and I can just get in and out.
I go down to finger printing and the most friendly lady I met all day at the MEPS goes through my FBI file and just verifies my social security number and and address and such. She then takes me to the finger printing machine and asks if I have any dirt or poop on my fingers. I laugh and we get my finger prints in. I wonder to myself why everyone else at the MEPS can't be cool like her and then meet up with my recruiter who was pretty pissed. I'm not sure if it was at me or at the lady who FUCKED me over. But he was pissed nonetheless. He looked for a loophole but there wasnt one. Another guy who had come down with Sgt. Stevens got a job and $30,000 in bonuses. Nice. Did I mentioned that since I got fucked by that lady I lost my $20,000 bonus? Well I did. Anyway.
We head back home and I get to sit in the oven, I mean the back seat of my recruiters car and get extremely car sick. I managed keep that shitty sub sandwich from the MEPS in my stomach and finally got home. It seemed surreal, like I wasn't really there. I was just really tired I guess. I collapsed on my bed and put every curse in the book on that woman who fucked me over before passing out. FUCK MEPS.
We all get out into the pouring rain and head to the front door. It's locked so we wait. Eventually a Marine comes out and gives us the rundown. He tells us what the day is going to be like and tells us to tuck our shirts in or fucking leave. We obide and he lets us in. We head down to our branch of service and as soon as I walk into the Army office I see Zidane (from the ride down to Nashville) getting chewed out by some civilian. He basically ignores the guy which only pisses him off more. I get my packet and cute little name tag and start a pretty shitty day.
We go into a classroom and a Navy guy (I think) comes in and goes into detail about whats going to happen and what to do and not to do. All of the people (including me) who have GEDs are told to stay behind and he sends everyone else to the next step. We take the AIMS test which is to see if we're as big of fuck ups as the Army thinks were going to be and then catch up with everyone else. As we're all waiting for our eye exams a very ugly lady comes around and takes all of our blood pressures. When she gets to me she pumps the cuff up like hell until it explodes in my face, scaring the shit out of me. She then retrieves what appears to be a thigh cuff or something and places it on my arm. She pumps it up and puts a sticker in my packet and tells me I need to lower my blood pressure. Get out of my fucking face.
After the eye exam, and hearing exam we walk down the hall into another classroom. We do a bunch more paperwork about any medical problems we've had in the past and we have our breathalyzer test. She sends everyone else on their way and tells me to stay behind. Fucking great I thought, I've failed the breathalyzer in some mysterious way. Turns out she wanted to take my blood pressure again.
She starts the machine up and walks outside for a minute. I look at the little screen and it says something like 132 over 80. She comes back about 5 minutes later and starts the machine again, and leaves. This time it was 138 or so over 85 I think. The third time I ask her if she could actually stay and write down the reading this time. She then gives me a mean look and tells me to run downstairs to the control desk and tell them to warn me. Oh yeah, and she gives me 2 minutes. I run downstairs, the Marine from outside is there and he just laughs and sends me back. I run back and she immediately hooks me back up in record time and takes my blood pressure again. 150 something over a high 80. Fuck. She writes Elevated BP in my packet and smiles at me like the bitch she is. I know deep inside she has just fucked me.
I catch up with everyone else and have my blood drawn and do a urinalysis and sit down with a doctor to go over my medical history. I'm a GO at every station. Next is the physical. 8 of us go into a room and strip down to our underwear and are weighed. I'm overweight of course and have to be taped. I pass. I then go into a room with a doctor and he makes sure everything works and touches my balls. Yay.
He then sits down and looks through my packet. I had basically forgotten about the blood pressure bullshit but it was still in my packet unfortunately. He then informs me that I'm disqualified because of my blood pressure. He asked me if I was just nervous or something and I told him about the whole ordeal with that woman and he sighed and said there was nothing he could do. He wrote me a note to take to my doctor and said that all I would have to do is get 3 good (under 140 over 90) blood pressure readings from a private physician and then return to MEPS with a note saying I was good to go. Fucking great. Im glad thats ALL I have to do.
I walk out of his room and put my clothes back on and catch up with everyone. If I hadnt been disqualified this is the part where I would go into the Army office and pick my job, then go swear in and go home. But why the fuck would that happen. I go into the Army office and inform a guy wearing an ACU that I've been DQ'd for blood pressure. Hes really professional about it and tells me that it happens all the time and says the same shit the doctor did. He then takes my packet and has me go down to finger printing so that when I return I wont have any more bullshit to go through and I can just get in and out.
I go down to finger printing and the most friendly lady I met all day at the MEPS goes through my FBI file and just verifies my social security number and and address and such. She then takes me to the finger printing machine and asks if I have any dirt or poop on my fingers. I laugh and we get my finger prints in. I wonder to myself why everyone else at the MEPS can't be cool like her and then meet up with my recruiter who was pretty pissed. I'm not sure if it was at me or at the lady who FUCKED me over. But he was pissed nonetheless. He looked for a loophole but there wasnt one. Another guy who had come down with Sgt. Stevens got a job and $30,000 in bonuses. Nice. Did I mentioned that since I got fucked by that lady I lost my $20,000 bonus? Well I did. Anyway.
We head back home and I get to sit in the oven, I mean the back seat of my recruiters car and get extremely car sick. I managed keep that shitty sub sandwich from the MEPS in my stomach and finally got home. It seemed surreal, like I wasn't really there. I was just really tired I guess. I collapsed on my bed and put every curse in the book on that woman who fucked me over before passing out. FUCK MEPS.
To the MEPS
I wake up at about 10 AM and remember that I'm going to the MEPS that day at 11 AM or so. Shit. I bust my ass to get ready and Sgt. Stevens arrives an hour and a half late at 12:30 PM. Whatever. We go back to the recruiters office and I take a piss test to make sure I havnt been dropping acid or eating magic brownies lately. We're sitting in the office and some ancient guy walks in and asks if theres anyone going to MEPS today. Sgt. Stevens wishes me good luck and I walk outside and see that the "bus" is actually just one of those damn church vans with like 5 rows of seats. Fucking great.
So I get in and nobody else is on the "bus" yet. I pick a seat in the back so I don't have to talk to the old guy on our 2 hour trip to Nashville and make sure that I worry myself to death. It turns out this old turd drives like a bat out of hell, screaching our fat ass van out of the parking lot and nearly getting us hit by an 18 wheeler. FUCKING GREAT. We take a little trip in the wrong direction and stop at a Waffle House. The son of a bitch driving informs me that we'll be here for about 15 minutes and turns the van off and heads in leaving me inside the oven, I mean van.
30 minutes later he comes back out and we head off in the correct direction this time. We stop at another recruiting station and pick up two more guys. One of them looks like your average former high school soccer player, the other looks like Beethoven. I never knew either of their names so I'll just refer to them as Zidane and Beethoven. As we're motoring along Zidane turns around and asks me if this is my first time to MEPS. I tell him yes and he informs me that its "going to suck." The usual I guess. He then lets me know that if I get the doctor with the white hair, hes going to tell me to bend over and spread my asscheeks and touch my asshole. Fucking great.
Our conversation ends there and then Beethoven chimes in with some bullshit about how the semi next to us "must have hooked up his trailer lights wrong because the second trailer doesn't appear to be applying its break lights at all even though the first trailer is and blahblahblahblahblah." Oh yeah, and "blahblahblah" Zidane glances up into the drivers rear view mirror rolls his eyes at me. I laugh. Beethoven then begins to make himself sound like a general know it all and a wontshutthefuckupitall for the entire trip to Nashville. After arriving in Nashville we got off the van at a place that didn't look anything like a hotel. That's because it wasn't, it was the MEPS. The driver tells us to just hang out and listen for the page over the PA system calling for people going to the hotel. He said it should be about 20 minutes.
3 FUCKING hours later, another garbled message comes over the shitty PA system and I hear the word hotel. We all go to the front of the building and theres 3 buses there. I board the bus that I rode in on and the driver makes sure that everyone is going to "Atkins." Fucking great. I tell him no and bust my ass getting off and get onto the van going to the hotel. Theres one seat left next to a super fox and I sit down nex to her. Of course she makes a weird face when we meet eyes and looks the other direction and any chance of this trip being enjoyable goes right out the window.
We arrive at the most awesome looking hotel I've seen. Really. This place must be a 4 or 5 star. Hell yeah motherfucker. We all walk in and take a seat and wait for some guy to give us a briefing. Eventually the guy who told us to have a seat gets up and asks for all of the people who are shipping out to basic the next day. He gives them the run down, their keycards and they all fuck off. He then asks for all of the people who are going to the MEPs for the first time. The 3 of us that are left walk over to him. Me, some guy who looks like he just got out of the NFL, and a kid who appears to have downs syndrome. He basically tells us if we go on the wrong floor or leave the hotel he will fuck us up. Whatever. He gives us our cards and we start walking down the hallway. I find out on the elevator that the kid with downs syndrome is going to be an Infantryman too. Sweet, I'm in good company I guess. Fucking great.
So we begin walking down the hall to our rooms and the NFL dude and me end up at the same door. I sigh inside and ask him if hes staying in 404 too. An obvious yes comes and we both go in. I pretty much do everything in my power not to piss this guy off and we go to dinner and sit together. I find out that hes actually just switching from the Active Army to the National Guard. Cool. I tell him im trying to get in as an Infantryman and he looks at me like im a fucking retard and then asks me if I'm a fucking retard. I don't remember what I said next but it didn't help. Anyway, we head back up to our room and he grabs the remote and turns to Family Guy or some shit. We never really talked much after that and at midnight I looked over and he was asleep. I attempt to do the same but it doesnt work. I eventually dozed off around 1 or 2 AM and then our lovely phone rings at 4:15 AM.
We both get up and do our thing and head down for breakfast. At breakfast I find out that the kid with downs syndrome basically pissed off about 20 guys last night and told them all about shrimping (yes im serious) and they now call him DD for some reason.
So I get in and nobody else is on the "bus" yet. I pick a seat in the back so I don't have to talk to the old guy on our 2 hour trip to Nashville and make sure that I worry myself to death. It turns out this old turd drives like a bat out of hell, screaching our fat ass van out of the parking lot and nearly getting us hit by an 18 wheeler. FUCKING GREAT. We take a little trip in the wrong direction and stop at a Waffle House. The son of a bitch driving informs me that we'll be here for about 15 minutes and turns the van off and heads in leaving me inside the oven, I mean van.
30 minutes later he comes back out and we head off in the correct direction this time. We stop at another recruiting station and pick up two more guys. One of them looks like your average former high school soccer player, the other looks like Beethoven. I never knew either of their names so I'll just refer to them as Zidane and Beethoven. As we're motoring along Zidane turns around and asks me if this is my first time to MEPS. I tell him yes and he informs me that its "going to suck." The usual I guess. He then lets me know that if I get the doctor with the white hair, hes going to tell me to bend over and spread my asscheeks and touch my asshole. Fucking great.
Our conversation ends there and then Beethoven chimes in with some bullshit about how the semi next to us "must have hooked up his trailer lights wrong because the second trailer doesn't appear to be applying its break lights at all even though the first trailer is and blahblahblahblahblah." Oh yeah, and "blahblahblah" Zidane glances up into the drivers rear view mirror rolls his eyes at me. I laugh. Beethoven then begins to make himself sound like a general know it all and a wontshutthefuckupitall for the entire trip to Nashville. After arriving in Nashville we got off the van at a place that didn't look anything like a hotel. That's because it wasn't, it was the MEPS. The driver tells us to just hang out and listen for the page over the PA system calling for people going to the hotel. He said it should be about 20 minutes.
3 FUCKING hours later, another garbled message comes over the shitty PA system and I hear the word hotel. We all go to the front of the building and theres 3 buses there. I board the bus that I rode in on and the driver makes sure that everyone is going to "Atkins." Fucking great. I tell him no and bust my ass getting off and get onto the van going to the hotel. Theres one seat left next to a super fox and I sit down nex to her. Of course she makes a weird face when we meet eyes and looks the other direction and any chance of this trip being enjoyable goes right out the window.
We arrive at the most awesome looking hotel I've seen. Really. This place must be a 4 or 5 star. Hell yeah motherfucker. We all walk in and take a seat and wait for some guy to give us a briefing. Eventually the guy who told us to have a seat gets up and asks for all of the people who are shipping out to basic the next day. He gives them the run down, their keycards and they all fuck off. He then asks for all of the people who are going to the MEPs for the first time. The 3 of us that are left walk over to him. Me, some guy who looks like he just got out of the NFL, and a kid who appears to have downs syndrome. He basically tells us if we go on the wrong floor or leave the hotel he will fuck us up. Whatever. He gives us our cards and we start walking down the hallway. I find out on the elevator that the kid with downs syndrome is going to be an Infantryman too. Sweet, I'm in good company I guess. Fucking great.
So we begin walking down the hall to our rooms and the NFL dude and me end up at the same door. I sigh inside and ask him if hes staying in 404 too. An obvious yes comes and we both go in. I pretty much do everything in my power not to piss this guy off and we go to dinner and sit together. I find out that hes actually just switching from the Active Army to the National Guard. Cool. I tell him im trying to get in as an Infantryman and he looks at me like im a fucking retard and then asks me if I'm a fucking retard. I don't remember what I said next but it didn't help. Anyway, we head back up to our room and he grabs the remote and turns to Family Guy or some shit. We never really talked much after that and at midnight I looked over and he was asleep. I attempt to do the same but it doesnt work. I eventually dozed off around 1 or 2 AM and then our lovely phone rings at 4:15 AM.
We both get up and do our thing and head down for breakfast. At breakfast I find out that the kid with downs syndrome basically pissed off about 20 guys last night and told them all about shrimping (yes im serious) and they now call him DD for some reason.
My first taste of Army bullshit
So I went back to the recruiting Office and turned in all of the paperwork that Sgt. Rice had given me. She entered a shit load of info into the computer and had my mom sign the parental consent form since I'm under 18. Blah blah blah, I left and Sgt. Rice told me she would call me in a day or two to tell me when I would be going to MEPS. MEPS is the place where you basically do all of the shit that determines whether or not you can join the military and exactly what it is you're going to be doing in the military and for how long.
I get a call that night at about 9 PM and a man named Sgt. Stevens, (name changed again) who I've never heard of and never seen at the recruiters office, tells me that Sgt. Rice has "other things to do" and he's going to be handling me now. Fucking great. So he comes by the next day and picks me up and basically does a bunch of shit that Sgt. Rice has already done. We get all of my shit in the computer, again, and send it to some magical place and he tells me I'll be going to MEPS in 3 days. Cue more worrying. He tells me the MEPS experience will be something like this.
-Arrive at Hotel
-Spend the night with someone you don't know and will never see again
-Wake up before the fucking sun even takes its middle of the night piss
-Go to the MEPS
-Do a bunch of shit for about 9 hours or so
-Come home with some shit job that you had no intentions of doing when you walked in
I get a call that night at about 9 PM and a man named Sgt. Stevens, (name changed again) who I've never heard of and never seen at the recruiters office, tells me that Sgt. Rice has "other things to do" and he's going to be handling me now. Fucking great. So he comes by the next day and picks me up and basically does a bunch of shit that Sgt. Rice has already done. We get all of my shit in the computer, again, and send it to some magical place and he tells me I'll be going to MEPS in 3 days. Cue more worrying. He tells me the MEPS experience will be something like this.
-Arrive at Hotel
-Spend the night with someone you don't know and will never see again
-Wake up before the fucking sun even takes its middle of the night piss
-Go to the MEPS
-Do a bunch of shit for about 9 hours or so
-Come home with some shit job that you had no intentions of doing when you walked in
The Journey Begins
What a shitty title. Anyway. So my mommy called me and informed me that she had set us up an appointment to see Sgt. Rice (name has been changed, obvious reasons) at the recruiters office on Monday. "Fucking great" I thought to myself. I was angry, nervous, excited and fearful all at the same time. What will she be like? What happens next? Whatever. This was all about 3 days before the appointment was actually scheduled, so I had plenty of time to shit bricks and worry my ass off.
So Monday rolls around and my mom, sister and I all get into the shit wagon and motor down to the recruiters officer. We walk in and discover that there are 10 (ten) recruiters in this tiny room all with a desk and computer to their own. Wow, I guess the Army isnt really as hard pressed for recruits as they make it sound, or they just cant figure out what to do with these people. Anyway. We find Sgt. Rice among the crowd, a short, semi fat black lady. As soon as my ass hit that chair with "Army" stitched into the back of the seat, I had 10 recruiters breathing down my neck asking me what I wanted to be.
"Infantry" I said, sounding like a little girl seconds before a back alley rape. They all laughed, again with the light heartedness. All except for one who gave me a "Hooah". Obviously the Infantryman of the bunch. Everyone went back to their desks to do shit that had nothing to do with recruiting and Sgt. Rice got to work on me. Basically I went away that day with a shit load of packets and forms to be signed at home. Oh yeah, and I was to report to the National Guard armory in 2 days to take the ASVAB. Again, fucking great.
Sgt. Rice gave me a pamplet that had every job the Army had to offer. She told me to circle 10 jobs that looked interesting to me and come back after I had taken the ASVAB and she had received my scores. I sat down that night with that dumbass pamplet and my new "Army Strong" pen and circled 3 jobs. Infantryman, Explosives Ordnance Disposale, Combat Engineer. Great, 7 more to go. I ended up circling something else like M1 Crewman and then just circled Infantryman another 6 times. Whatever, theres no way I'm going to be a goddamn Radio Repairman or the other 39841 jobs they had that just replaced Radio with some other piece of equipment.
I was sort of pissed that I basically only had two days to study for the ASVAB. One if you count the fact that I didnt even study on one of the days. I ended up scoring a 53 for my AFQT. Yay I'm fucking retarded. The test actually wasnt all that difficult and from the way I understand it, a 53 means that I scored better than 53% of the people who took the test for the Department of WhatTheFuckEver back in 2004 or something like that. So I'm not that retarded after all, I guess. The part that really counts are the "line" scores which basically are just a bunch of different parts of the test that they divide up and put into categories like General Technical and Combat and Verbal Expressions and WhoReallyGivesAFuck. According to Sgt. Rice my line scores were all over 100 so in your face everyone who doubted my non-retardedness.
So Monday rolls around and my mom, sister and I all get into the shit wagon and motor down to the recruiters officer. We walk in and discover that there are 10 (ten) recruiters in this tiny room all with a desk and computer to their own. Wow, I guess the Army isnt really as hard pressed for recruits as they make it sound, or they just cant figure out what to do with these people. Anyway. We find Sgt. Rice among the crowd, a short, semi fat black lady. As soon as my ass hit that chair with "Army" stitched into the back of the seat, I had 10 recruiters breathing down my neck asking me what I wanted to be.
"Infantry" I said, sounding like a little girl seconds before a back alley rape. They all laughed, again with the light heartedness. All except for one who gave me a "Hooah". Obviously the Infantryman of the bunch. Everyone went back to their desks to do shit that had nothing to do with recruiting and Sgt. Rice got to work on me. Basically I went away that day with a shit load of packets and forms to be signed at home. Oh yeah, and I was to report to the National Guard armory in 2 days to take the ASVAB. Again, fucking great.
Sgt. Rice gave me a pamplet that had every job the Army had to offer. She told me to circle 10 jobs that looked interesting to me and come back after I had taken the ASVAB and she had received my scores. I sat down that night with that dumbass pamplet and my new "Army Strong" pen and circled 3 jobs. Infantryman, Explosives Ordnance Disposale, Combat Engineer. Great, 7 more to go. I ended up circling something else like M1 Crewman and then just circled Infantryman another 6 times. Whatever, theres no way I'm going to be a goddamn Radio Repairman or the other 39841 jobs they had that just replaced Radio with some other piece of equipment.
I was sort of pissed that I basically only had two days to study for the ASVAB. One if you count the fact that I didnt even study on one of the days. I ended up scoring a 53 for my AFQT. Yay I'm fucking retarded. The test actually wasnt all that difficult and from the way I understand it, a 53 means that I scored better than 53% of the people who took the test for the Department of WhatTheFuckEver back in 2004 or something like that. So I'm not that retarded after all, I guess. The part that really counts are the "line" scores which basically are just a bunch of different parts of the test that they divide up and put into categories like General Technical and Combat and Verbal Expressions and WhoReallyGivesAFuck. According to Sgt. Rice my line scores were all over 100 so in your face everyone who doubted my non-retardedness.
In the beginning...I grew a pair.
"Are you serious? *laugh* To do what?"
The answer to that phrase..."I'm joining the Army." I've never understood why most people respond so light heartedly to something so serious. But then again, what else can you say. Especially considering the current situation America has itself wrapped up in.
"WHAT?!? Why!?"
The answer to that response. "Infantry." Why Infantry? What could possibly make me want to join the Infantry? The honest answer? I don't know. I really don't. I've sat up night after night trying to come up with a reason as to why I would put myself into, arguably, the most dangerous job the US Military has to offer. To server my country? No. The money? No. To travel? No. The excitement? Sort of, but no. When I was researching the Army and looking through all of the MOS's (jobs) they have to offer, nothing gave me that little charge deep inside like 11X - Infantryman did. As cheesy and gay and retarded as it sounds, it just feels like I have to do it. I have to try.
Not really sure why I'm making a blog either. I read most blogs and think to myself, "Wow this is really fucking boring and stupid." but I suppose you have to talk to somebody about your feelings, even if its just a stupid website.
The answer to that phrase..."I'm joining the Army." I've never understood why most people respond so light heartedly to something so serious. But then again, what else can you say. Especially considering the current situation America has itself wrapped up in.
"WHAT?!? Why!?"
The answer to that response. "Infantry." Why Infantry? What could possibly make me want to join the Infantry? The honest answer? I don't know. I really don't. I've sat up night after night trying to come up with a reason as to why I would put myself into, arguably, the most dangerous job the US Military has to offer. To server my country? No. The money? No. To travel? No. The excitement? Sort of, but no. When I was researching the Army and looking through all of the MOS's (jobs) they have to offer, nothing gave me that little charge deep inside like 11X - Infantryman did. As cheesy and gay and retarded as it sounds, it just feels like I have to do it. I have to try.
Not really sure why I'm making a blog either. I read most blogs and think to myself, "Wow this is really fucking boring and stupid." but I suppose you have to talk to somebody about your feelings, even if its just a stupid website.
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