MEPS
I went to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) the other day, Wednesday actually. It was an interesting experience. My recruiter stopped by at 9 AM and woke me up after only 1.5-2 hours of sleep and asked me if I wanted to go, and kind of foolishly I said yes. We left at 1 pm, after I got no more sleep, and got to Syracuse around 2:30.
I took the ASVAB (Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery) when I got there, which is not as I described it earlier. Basically there are 4 sections that make up the AFQT, or Armed Forces Qualification Test, which is a lot like the SAT. They are Word Knowledge, Paragraph Comprehension, Mathematical Knowledge, and Arithmetic Reasoning. Easy stuff, I got a 99th percentile on that. There are six more sections, things like science knowledge, shop/auto knowledge, electrical, etc. I guess I did well on those sections but I don't know what my scores were, and they don't matter for me anyway. After the ASVAB I sat around for 2 hours and watched TV while I waited alone for a Holiday Inn van to come get me. Eventually I got to go to the hotel and check in, and I crashed at 6 pm.
The next day, wakeup was at 4:30 (I got up at midnight after only dozing all evening, so I was totally screwed all day--I almost fell asleep every few minutes after about 8 AM. Breakfast was pretty good, they had the choice of cereal, french toast, or more robust food like bacon, sausage, and spiced hash browns. I took the meat and potatoes, since I hadn't eaten the day before--I didn't eat anything before I left with SFC Hartley and I slept through the dinner they offered. Two full plates of food later I was good to go. A taxi took us to the Federal Building and dropped us off at a loading dock type area for check in with security. They scanned our bags, asked about camera phones, and checked us for weapons and such.
Next we got to check in at the MEPS desk itself, and got our pictures taken for a quick visual check in our medical folders. They brought us one by one into a meeting room, where I got to see how many people I would get to spend the day with. Only five of us were there for physicals and such, with about a half dozen guys and one girl shipping out that day in the reception area. Major Downs, the Syracuse MEPS commander, gave us a briefing on our day, and then we filled out a great many medical pre-screening forms. Basically this is to determine if they need further medical records for you or a medical waiver, and I believe it determines whether or not you get a rectal/pelvic exam, which I thankfully did not.
Upstairs to the Medical floor we went, and they ran us through a gauntlet of tests. Urinalysis, blood drawn, visual acuity and refraction, blood pressure and pulse, a hearing test, and finally we got to meet the doctor. All of the shit before the doctor took about 2 hours, mostly sitting around. The doctor was a old, eccentric oriental man. He gave me a rapid fire physical, and he was none too gentle either. I won't go into detail here because frankly it's not important, the point is he was content with my physical condition.
I was the last one done with the doctor, so I went down the hall to strip to my gym shorts--this is important if you don't regularly wear underwear: wear at least gym shorts or you'll be screwed--and join the rest of the guys. I got weighed, measured heightwise, and admonished not to gain any weight (in the next six months--right) because I was only 7 (only?) pounds under the limit for my height, which is 189 pounds. Remember how I thought I'd never be this light again? Well, I am now. Anyway, they lined us up and made us do a series of movements to test for joint pain, range of motion, etc. The duck walk gave me some trouble, but the rest of the stuff we had to do was no big deal.
After we got dressed again, they sent us down the hall to have our medical folders reviewed and graded and stuff. I got all 1's on the PULHES grading system, which basically tests your physical stamina, eyesight, hearing, sanity, upper and lower extremities. Each factor, like P or H, is rated from 1 to 4. The standards are available elsewhere, but basically all 1's is good. It's called a picket fence when your PULHES is 111111. Logical. I needed a picket fence to get my contract, so I was relieved when I heard that; I had been worried about my eyesight, but it was no big deal apparently.
Our medical stuff was effectively done at that point, and I was sent back to the MEPS floor to move into my next stage of the day, which was talking to a career counselor. I went to see MSG Pierce in the Army Liaison office across the hall as instructed but he had me wait in the reception room until the shippers were done being processed. Twenty minutes later he came and took me into his office.
His first question was how long do I want to wait to ship, which was obviously a set up question since when I offered my tentative 'at least three months' he immediately said 'not gonna happen' and said I had to ship within two months, and realistically by Jan 31. I told him that there was no way I was shipping with an Option 40 on Jan 31 because I wouldn't be ready, at which point he tried to be a hardass and intimidate me into that contract. I held my ground, and he said he might as well call my recruiter and send me home and I said fine, I'll come back next month. At this point I inquired as to whether or not going to college this semester would make a difference, and he ran some searches and pulled some strings and to make a long story short I ended up with an 11X Opt 40 contract leaving June 20th, as long as I go to college full time this semester.
I'm kind of fuzzy on what happened next because by this time I was getting incredibly tired. I know I had an interview with a sergeant who ran through my information several times, I suppose trying to catch me in a lie, and I was truthful about everything so my interview was very quick. She had me wash my hands and took my fingerprints electronically, which was pretty cool. Next I got to sit for several hours while the other guys, including some moron who came in late and held the rest of us up by about 90 minutes. Eventually we were sworn in by a Naval Lieutenant, who was a pretty cool guy. We signed our contracts, I got sent to MSG Pierce again, and soon after I got to go home. My recruiter, the poor guy, had to wait for me for three hours past when I should have been done.
One thing that struck me the most about the servicemen I met was their handshakes. Very firm and confident. I can't stand limp handshakes.
I crashed at about 5pm when I got home thursday afternoon, and slept all night until 7am, 14 hours straight without waking once. I was left with a few tasks to do, which I got done yesterday (Friday). I enrolled for 16 credits and got a letter of enrollment verification and faxed it to MEPS, which means for the moment I'm all set. The End of my MEPS story.
I guess in case any aspiring soldiers read this, I'll leave a few pearls of wisdom:
Wear underwear or gym shorts. Don't wear a plain white T-shirt in MEPS, it's considered an undergarment and thus inappropriate.
Get plenty of sleep before the ASVAB and don't fuck around at the hotel, just get some sleep. You are not allowed to sleep in the lounge.
Bring a book or magazine, or two. You'll do tons of sitting around.
Be 100% honest about your criminal record. Juvenile record, expunged, whatever, it doesn't matter, the military can still find it.
Be 100% honest in answering questions about your medical record, but do not volunteer information beyond what they ask you. Sometimes it's fun to talk about all of your past injuries, but that is NOT the time to do it.
Don't sign anything but what you want. Don't let them intimidate you.
Don't take promises, and make sure you get everything in writing. READ your contract.
When you're in your interview, don't act shifty. Keep eye contact, don't fidget, answer truthfully.
Oh, don't bring knives or anything that can be seen as a weapon. Common sense, but some people carry a knife or knives all the time (like me) so it's easy to forget.
Be polite to the MEPS personnel; if you fuck around or aren't there when they need you they might leave you waiting all day. They have to be there anyway, they don't care if you wait. This happened to me when the other guys left to go smoke outside; I was the only one there when the Air Force E-3 came by to get us sworn in and we got to wait another two hours.
