The Journey Begins

The fun part of my decision to join the Guard came when I had to bring it up with The Wife. (Who read the blog last night, BTW, and asked me to assure you: she STILL thinks I’m an asshole!) I knew that wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Of course, knowing that didn’t prepare me for her initial response, which went something along the lines of . . . “Are you out of your fucking mind? No way in hell! No, no , NO,NO NO!!!!!!!” As I recall, she stormed out of the room after that, refusing to speak to me for the rest of the night. Luckily for me, The Wife is a rational woman. She came back to me to discuss it the next day and we had nearly a ten second conversation before she said something to the effect of . . . . “Are you out of your fucking mind? No way in hell! No, no , no, NO, NO!!!” We set it aside for another day, then took it up once more until . . . “Are you out of your fucking mind? No way in hell! No, no , no!” This went on for a week or two until The Wife finally reduced her emphatic statements down to the simple, yet poignant: “You’re an asshole, but if you need to do this . . .” Now, she just shakes her head a lot and uses the short form: “You’re an asshole.” Luckily, she smiles when she says it (usually!) That’s when I knew it was all gonna be cool. She’s been calling me that for twenty(+) years now . . . If she ever stops I’m gonna get worried.

The next step was to contact a recruiter. I’d been hanging about on the National Guard discussion board for the better part of a year and there was a recruiter from NJ on there who seemed pretty knowledgeable and with zero tolerance for bullshit (a man after my own heart!) so I shot him an e-mail with my basic info. He called me the next day and his first question –after seeing my age- was: “How serious about this are you, really?” Seems the man had been burnt by a few guys my age who were just mid-life crisis-ing and bailed before taking the oath, after he’d put in months of work getting them squared away. I assured him I was 100% on board and we moved forward. The first step was paper work. I have come to realize that there is no organization on the planet as fond of killing trees as the U.S. Army. Holy crap! I filled out at least 20 different forms, all of them with hundreds of questions before I could even consider starting the enlistment process.

The Recruiter scheduled me for a trip to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) on a Friday. That meant we had to be at the facility by 4:00 on Thursday night. I was warned that since I had to have an “over 40” physical that I couldn’t eat anything after 6:00 p.m. that night. No worries, they serve dinner to you at the hotel. Yea well, not so much! We got there at 4:00 and I was immediately pushed into the MEPS process. I had to sign in, get ID checked, etc. Then they took me straight down to take the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). The ASVAB is a series of tests in different areas (math, algebra, reading, mechanical knowledge, etc.) that tell the Army what types of jobs you are equipped to handle. Each Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), or what normal folks call a job, has a minimum score requirement for the tests that correlate to the position. For example, to get a job as a 68W I had to get a min. of 105 General/Technical score (combo of math, science & reading – I got a 142) They also total up/average out all your scores on the various tests to give you a percentile score (AFQT) that shows how you did in comparison to everyone else who’s ever taken the test. I got a 97, which means I tested out in the top 3% of everyone in the military. Yup, I’m da man!

Anyway, the Asvab took about 1-1/2 hours, and then I had to wait another hour for the bus to the hotel, so I didn’t get there until after 9:00 p.m. so guess who wasn’t allowed to eat dinner? To top it all off, I had to share a hotel room with a young man who was shipping out the following morning. He was nervous and couldn’t sleep so he had the TV on all night. He also had his cell phone on and his family and friends kept calling to wish him luck/say goodbye one last time . . . ALL FRIGGIN’ NIGHT! As it was, I didn’t get into the room until after 10:00 and I had to be up at 3:30 a.m. to catch the bus back to MEPS for my physical. I think I managed a total of ten minutes of sleep that night. Of course, when we got downstairs the hotel had breakfast for everyone before we left . . . for everyone except yours truly of course. No eating allowed for my ancient ass! By the time we got to MEPS at 5:00 a.m. I was tired, hungry, thirsty, and feeling just a wee bit cranky. What a way to start off my military career, huh?

The day at MEPS rates its own post, so I’ll sign off now and dazzle you with that next week.

Later!