(December 2001)
It is 0515 (5:15 am), and I am waiting with several other recruits to get a ride to MEPS. There are about six of us, and we are at different stages of recruitment: some are shipping to Basic Training today, some are taking the ASVAB, and some, like me, are taking their physical and signing up for the Army. We have to all ride together in an Army van driver by a recruiter because the way security is set up at MEPS [Military Entrance Processing Station], they don't allow civilians to go in on their own.
This is the day I am supposed to sign my life over to the military, so naturally I am nervous at first, but I quickly realize that the tedious and bureaucratic nature of the process makes nervousness seem a bit out of place. When we got to MEPS I immediately understand why the phrase "Hurry up and wait," is the motto of the armed forces. There is a line for everything. We arrive and wait in line to sign in. Then we wait in line to go through security. From there we sign in again at a different desk and wait to be assigned a counselor. Then we sit in another room where we receive two folders with our names on them, and wait for the Sergeant Major to brief us...you get the point.
The first thing important thing you do is get assigned an enlistment counselor and he checks your paperwork packet to make sure everything is there and that your recruiter did the paperwork correctly. It's got all your previous addresses, names, addresses and phones numbers of just about everyone you know, your entire medical and legal history, copies of your degrees, if any, copies of your social security card, drivers license, etc, etc...again, you get the point.
Once they confirm that all your paperwork is in order, they ask you some simple medical questions and then you get sent for a full medical exam. Now, the day before I had gone to MEPS, Sgt Anderson called me at work and asked me to come down to the recruiting office so he could brief me about the medical exam. I didn't understand why I had to physically go to his office, and asked him why we couldn't just do this on the phone.
Nick "Sergeant, after dealing with the academy and corporate America, I think I'm capable of getting through the first day of my military career."
Sgt Anderson "Shut the fuck up you cock-smoker. This is the Army--it's totally different."
When I got to there, he took me in his office, closed the door and pulled the shades. I made some joke about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but he ignored me and without saying a word calmly sat across from me at his desk. This was the first time I could ever recall him being serious with me, save right before he made that fateful call to the SF recruiting station at Bragg.
Sgt. Anderson "Alright, Nick, you go to MEPS tomorrow and enlist. This is it son, your last chance to back out. You bail now and no harm is done."
Nick "Come on, you know me better than that by now."
Sgt Anderson "Alright, we've already done all your paperwork, collected your addresses, all that shit. Now I want you to tell me everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that is wrong with you medically. Every injury, allergy, ANYTHING that required more than a band-aid and a kiss from your mom, tell me about right now."
I cataloged my entire medical history to him. Several broken bones, hyper-extended knees, minor cartilage injuries, and other assorted sports maladies topped the list. I have a few allergies, common ones like mold and pollen. My tonsils and adnoids have been taken out, and I had one semi-major surgery, a tympanoplasy (ruptured ear drum)* when I was younger, but it healed fine.
The whole time, Sgt. Anderson just shook his head. When I was finished, he sat solemly for a second and then said to me:
Sgt. Anderson "What I'm about to tell you is against Army and recruiter rules, and I could get court marshaled if you tell anyone about what I'm about to say. If you do tell someone about this conversation, I'll deny it and call you a goddamn liar. There are no witnesses here and a 14 year decorated NCO's word will crush yours, so listen to me: If you want to be in the Army, then NONE of that happened to you. You've never had knee problems, you've never broken a bone, you have no allergies, and you for DAMN SURE haven't ever had surgery. NOTHING. You tracking?"
Nick "No. What are you talking about?"
Sgt. Anderson "You're like my goddamn six-year old: I have to explain everything to you. Look, the Army is fucked up, and they will cancel your enlistment for just about goddamn any medical problem you can think of. I've seen guys get clipped for a fucking grass allergy. No shit. Now, nothing you've said is that serious, and once you get in and get to your unit you can be honest and they won't really give a shit, but if you disclose all this shit up front, you won't get in. You can be honest about the tonsil and adnoid shit, but that is it."
Nick "Are you serious?"
Sgt. Anderson "Do I look like I'm shittin' you? They will tell you that you'll get in trouble if you lie, but they're wrong, they're trying to trick you. Now if you had asthma, yeah, that could be a fuckin problem later on. If you had prior heart issues, yeah, that could be a fucking problem, but the shit you have is no big deal in the real military and won't ever prevent you from serving, but at MEPS they'll shit over it. Just lie. Trust me son, I've only got your best interests in mind. You trackin' now?"
Nick "Yeah, Sergeant. I guess."
This really confused me. Could the Army be so stupid and fucked up as to cancel enlistments for a grass allergy? I have since learned that this is a VERY common thing for a recruiter to do, and it in fact developed as a sort of unsanctioned way for the Army to shield itself from liability while still meeting its recruiting goals. By telling people to lie about their medical history, the Army, and the recruiters, can get a lot more people enlisted, and once the recruits get in if they have some pre-existing medical issue that is really bad, the Army can then kick them out for lying on their enlistment papers, especially if it's something expensive that the Army doesn't want to pay for.
This way the Army protects itself from liability and makes it look like they take only fully healthy recruits, while in fact they take just about anyone and then weed them out later. Sounds fucked up doesn't it? This would be far from the last time I was confronted with the confounding and confusing bureaucracy that is the United States Army.
So when the counselor asked me about any pre-existing medical conditions, I followed Sgt. Anderson's advice and lied:
Counselor "Now, no matter what your recruiter told you, you have to be honest. Have you been honest about your medical history?"
Nick "Yes."
Counselor "They will tell you to lie, and if you do, you could be court marshaled and potentially serve jail time. Do you understand this?"
Sgt. Anderson had better be right. If I have to go to jail for him I'll be pissed. But I trust him, my relationship to him, and his 14 years of hard won Army knowledge more than some bureaucrat who isn't even a soldier, so I go with it, and get sent to my medical exam.
Before you go to MEPS, they make a big point of telling you to wear underwear to the physical. I swear that the recruiters must have told me this 5-6 different times, and then when they picked me up to go, they asked me again, and even went so far as to physically check me to make sure I had some on. I couldn't understand the relevance of this until they took like twenty of us, all male, in a room and told us to strip down to our underwear. Of course, some fucking moron didn't wear any. I almost felt bad for the male nurse; you could tell from his attitude that he is tired of dealing with idiots on a daily basis.
Male Nurse "Why didn't you wear underwear?"
Idiot "I dunno."
Male Nurse "What do you have on underneath your pants?"
Idiot "Nuttin."
Male Nurse "Didn't your recruiter tell you to wear underwear?"
Idiot "Yeah."
Male Nurse "So why didn't you do it?"
Idiot "I dunno."
Male Nurse "Go find your recruiter and tell him you can't enlist today because you can't follow simple directions."
We all stood in line against the wall in our underwear as one by one, the nurse weighed us, measured us, and asked some basic medical questions. Then he lined us up in rows of five and a doctor came in and had us do all sorts of ridiculous things, like stand on one leg, stand with our arms out, etc. It made sense I guess, as they were checking for scoliosis and various other obvious physical ailments, but something about it still seemed a little, I don't know, suspicious. I hate to sound like a dweeb, but I felt a little dehumanized, like a fungible piece of meat or something.
The worst part was when they made us squat on our tip toes and do jumping jacks. If you've never done it, try it right now. It HURTS. Everything in my body hurt; my knees, my ankles, my lower back, everything. The body is not meant to that sort of thing. After doing five of these, I'd had enough:
"How absurd is this?"
No one, not even the nurse or doctor, gave me the dignity of even looking at me to acknowledge my comment or even my existence. What a weird place.
After the assault on my knees and lower back, one by one we went into a side room where another doctor had me take off my underwear and examined my penis and anus. I kinda wanted to ask him if he felt weird looking at penises and asses all day, but thought better of it. I guess I wouldn't be in a very good mood either if I went to med school and for my effort got stuck looking at dicks all day.
The physical went smoothly until they checked my heart rate. An orderly took my pulse once, looked at the reading quizzically, told me to relax, and left. He then came back in a few minutes and took my pulse again. The look on his face suggested to me that he was trying to read English for the first time. He wrote the words, "EKG" on a yellow Post-it note, stuck it on the outside of my folder, and told me to make sure and show that to the examining doctor. I didn't think much about it until the time came for my EKG and I was the only person getting one. Being different in the Army is rarely a good thing.
A different male nurse called me into a room and laid me on a table. He stuck several electrodes all over my body, mostly above the main arteries. He took a reading, and got the same type of confused face as the last nurse.
Great. I'm completely fucked up.
Nick "What's wrong? Am I OK?"
Nurse "Yeah; no problem. Just relax."
This is what every nurse always says. It doesn't fucking relax me at all.
He takes two more readings and is confused by both, shaking his head in astonishment at the last one. Then he turns to leave the room without saying a word. As he's walking out, I just about lose my mind.
Nick "What's going on? What's the problem?"
Nurse "Nothing, just some strange readings. Everything will be fine."
Do they teach them to be so delphic in nursing school? What the fuck? I'm laying here, watching my life's dream vanish, electronic blip by electronic blip, and he's telling me to relax? I just barely resist the urge to jump up from the table and strangle him to death with the EKG cords.
Another nurse comes in, tells me to calm down, and takes another reading, and look just as confused as ever.
Nick "So? What's wrong? Am I OK?"
They both look at the readings, and the second one asks me, "Do you run a lot? You an athlete?"
Oh thank God! That's why my readings are causing such a stir! If the fat blobs of shit that I'm here with are typical, they must not be used to seeing people in such good shape.
Nick "Yeah, I've been playing sports forever, and I was a college athlete. And I work out and stuff, run 4 miles a day, yeah."
They take me to the doctors, who confirm that the readings indicate an abnormally large difference between diastolic and systolic in my blood pressure, and an extremely low resting heart rate, which is typical for a runner or high level athlete. They note that while my 46 beats-per-minute heart rate is exceptionally low for an average person, its not so for an athlete. This actually ends up making me feel good, as there is medical evidence that my months of training prior to entering the Army paid off.
The doctors sign me off as healthy enough to enlist, and I get sent back down to the counselor where we finish the recruiting process.
The counselor signs me up for everything I asked for and prints out a sheet of paper with all this info and then he gives me the ominous speech:
Counselor "Nothing your recruiter told you is true if I don't say it. They will lie to you, so make sure EVERYTHING is on this piece of paper before you sign up, or you aren't getting it. Do you understand?"
Sgt. Anderson was straight with me and I did my homework, so I'm cool with everything, and it's all exactly as I expected it; the 18x program and a shipping date that is at least 3 weeks away.
I sign my name several times, he notarized my signature and then takes me to another room that has several flags and I am sat down among several other recruits for all the various branches.
A young female Air Force Captain comes in and gives us all the same speech about not believing anything the recruiters said that's not on the paper in front of us, then we sign and she signs also. We then all stand up, put our right hands in the air, and she administered an oath to us.
The funny thing is that even though that oath was my "official" entry into the Army, I couldn't tell you one word or phrase in that thing. As I blindly recited the words after her, my mind was thinking about the next four years ahead of me, the challenges, the hardships, the rewards; I was eager and optimistic about my future for the first time since I could remember.
But...Holy Fucking Shit--I did just join the Army? Wow.
At approximately 1640, I became property of the Department of Defense. I signed several more pieces of paper and in turn received my orders to ship on 9 January 2002.
That gives me 21 more days of civilian life. In that time, I have to tell all my family and friends that I am going into the Army, break off my engagement, sell my house and most of my belongings, and finish my training.
Posted by Rudius Media at 4:18 PM