Even were I inclined, I wasn't in a position to argue. The nervous kid sitting in the window seat was climbing over me to get into the aisle, frantically grabbing for his bag and accidentally placing his knee right in my crotch.

I managed to push him off my scrotum and onto the floor. I did this right as he snatched his bag from the overhead bin, and it came crashing down on my head. Judging by the weight and texture of the blow to my skull, he apparently planned on some bowling, and perhaps fixing something that required a wrench, in the next fourteen weeks.

I managed to push my way through the crowd, secure my ruck sack, and elbow my way to the front of the bus. The intervening five seconds did not see the DS's [Drill Sergeant] mood improve appreciably.

Instead of taking the normal route out of a passenger bus--walking down the front stairs--I followed the people in front of me, and climbed over the seats. Of course, buses are not designed for this sort of exit.

After climbing over the last seat, I fell down the stairs and out onto the pavement. Thankfully, my fall was buffered by other recruits who had preceded me. I scrambled up and ran as fast as I could, blindly following those in front of me. I looked up briefly, and almost laughed:

Welcome to Infantry Basic Training
Ft. Benning, Georgia

[I have since got to know several former and current DS's who've spent time at 30th AG, and none of them ever greeted a bus like that. They said that's much more the Marine style of greeting new recruits, and that for whatever reason the DS on duty that night was either in a bad mood or showing off for someone. Obviously the one show-off asshole out of a thousand was there to greet me.]

We were shepherded into a big reception room filled with wooden benches, where we were instructed to stand at the back and "shut your mouths." There was already a large group of recruits sitting on all the benches, filling out paperwork.

I looked around the room and was even more disappointed than I was at the airport. I expected to see a group of guys younger than me, but still like me. I thought that they'd be resolute and determined and in shape. I thought they'd be here because they wanted to be here. I thought they might be green and inexperienced, but still be hard and ready to conquer any obstacle in their path.

Instead, I was in the middle of the infield at a NASCAR race.

The guy sitting to the left of me had on a Pittsburgh Penguins Starter jacket, circa 1992. It looked like he found it in a dumpster. His hair was stringy and greasy, he was as fat as John Goodman, and he smelled like a public toilet. Literally--he had that combination piss and toilet brick smell of an airport toilet. The guy on the other side of him, one of the few in the room who looked like he had his shit together, kept looking at him with contempt. We shared a few "What the fuck is wrong with this guy?" looks. On my right was a kid whose teeth stuck out of his mouth, as if he'd been sucking his thumb long into adulthood. He had that absent "I'd be happy staring at a wall all day" look on his face that you see from cashiers at fast food restaurants. He was skinny as a rail and wheezed every time he took a breath.

What the fuck? Who are these fucking people? Is THIS what I left my life for? I wouldn't hire most of these guys to do my yard work, yet I'm going to serve next to them in an infantry unit and trust them with my life?

There were a few kids around me talking to each other. A Puerto Rican DS came to the back of the room and talked to those of us standing up.

"Who talkin back here? Shut'cho mouf. Shut it now. This your first hour in the Army, and you already actin' da fool. Don't let me catch'chu talking again. I'll smoke you till you catch fire."

Of course, the idiot standing next to me in the Penguins Starter jacket took this as a cue to talk. And of course he has a thick southern drawl.

"Smoke us? Wats dat mhean?"

I just shook my head. Anyone who has even SEEN A MILITARY MOVIE knows what's coming next.

"Front leaning rest position right now. All of you."

I, along with only about 6 other people in my group of 50, got into front leaning rest position. Front leaning rest position is basically just the starting position for push-ups, where your arms are straight and you are ready to go down and do a push-up, but instead of going down you just hold the position.

Instead of following the six of us who knew what we were doing, the idiot in the Penguin jacket didn't know when to shut up.

Idiot "Wats front leanin reast?"
Nick [From the front leaning rest position] "Hey Private Pyle, get in push-up position."
Idiot "Wat?"
DS "GET ON YOUR GODDAMN FACE!"

So there I am, 20 minutes after arriving at Ft. Benning, already getting smoked because this fucking doofus is too stupid to imitate everyone else.

He keeps us like this for maybe 5 minutes and lets us back up. I hardly even feel it, as I practiced front leaning rest position before I came in and can hold it pretty easily for at least 8-10 minutes. To my shock, almost everyone around me was fucking OUT OF BREATH. Private Pyle in the Penguins jacket had broke into a sweat. Unbelievable. This dude is not going to make it.

A few minutes later, a balding sergeant comes over and starts barking orders at us. We are told to empty our bags, and the sergeant reads off a list of contraband at us, and told us to throw all of it away. He tells us that if we throw all our contraband away now, we will be fine and no one will pursue any disciplinarian action against us, but if we keep anything that we brought on the list he read, they will find it and we will be punished.

This made no fucking sense to me. We were given a list of items to bring before we came, and told that anything else is contraband. One change of clothes, some white underwear, shower slippers, tooth paste, tooth brush, bathroom bag, a pair of sneakers, and that was about it. Yet, when the sergeant told those of us with contraband to file in to throw it in the amnesty box, nearly EVERYONE got in line. People had everything you can imagine--food, knives, drugs, shanks, cell phones, prescription medicines, tools, anything you could imagine. It was ridiculous. ALL of these items were specifically listed on the "Do Not Bring" list. Why would these idiots bring this stuff?

After this, we must have spent 3 hours doing the most tedious paperwork I could imagine. When we got on the plane we were given a huge packet of paperwork from our recruiters that they had filled out for us, and now we had to meticulously pour over each fact and verify that nothing was wrong. Anytime anyone had something wrong, one of the sergeants would come over and assist them. I didn't understand it at the time, but this scrupulous snail like pace is the way the Army works. Get things done exactly right, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how long you have to wait.

Let me explain where we are now. When you arrive at Ft. Benning you don't go straight to Basic Training. You are inprocessed at a place called 30th Adjunct General, or 30th AG for short. Sgt. Anderson mentioned this place in passing, but didn't really explain what it was. The balding DS just told us that we'd be at 30th AG for at least 4 days, and maybe up to 14 days. Two weeks till we start basic? What the fuck is wrong with this place?

We finished all the paperwork at around 3:30am, and were taken across a courtyard to a huge open air concrete building 3 stories high. It was cold out, like 40 degrees or less. Of the 50 guys who came with me on the bus, 40 were put in one bay, and I was put with the other 10 in a different bay because the first bay was full.

My group was taken to one of the rooms on the second floor. There were two guys in grey sweats with "ARMY" across the front and black watch caps on. They told us to go inside and find an empty bunk and go to sleep.

The inside of the bay looked exactly like the one in Full Metal Jacket; nothing but concrete floors and bunk after bunk after bunk, on both sides and in the middle. It was dark and everyone except for the guys standing guard was asleep, and almost every bed was taken.

There was one halogen ceiling light on in the bay, at the very front. Since I was the last one in, I ended up having to take the top bunk directly below the light because that was the only bed available in the place. It was 4am by the time I got settled. And the mattress had no sheets on it, because the bay was out of fresh linen and I couldn't pick any up until tomorrow.

I had started my day at 4am at MEPS yesterday, it was 24 hours later, and I'd had no sleep. I laid there almost in shock. I could not believe what a awful shitstorm this day had been.

The Army is nothing like I thought it would be. Everyone is an idiot. All you do is wait. Everyone is an asshole to you. The living arrangements are a fucking joke. We can't do anything without explicit permission. I might as well be in fucking jail.

I expected it to be shitty to a certain degree, that's not what bothers me. I didn't expect the DS's to be my friends or anything like that. What has really thrown me a curveball is the other kids here. They are complete and total fuck ups. These guys are the dregs of society. It's not like I am judging them by their socioeconomic status; you can be poor and still have dignity. But these kids wouldn't know dignity unless it was spelled "Digg-Nitty," wore bling and was drinking a forty.

And to top it all off, there was a loose spring digging in my side. This is just great.

I tried to go to sleep, and ended up having to literally tie a sweat shirt around my head so the blinding light that was 12 inches from face wouldn't keep me up. As soon as I got to sleep, I was shaken awake.

I looked at my watch: 5:34am.

Are you fucking kidding me? Is this what I signed up for?

I raised up off the bunk to get up and hit my head on the light cover. As I was rubbing my head I looked up at the ceiling, and carved into the tile next to the light was the only thing that made me smile in the past 24 hours:

30th AG:
Operation Clusterfuck

I wasn't even vaguely aware of how appropriate I would come to find that little carving to be.

I'm sitting in my townhouse, totally alone. Nothing but me, a flickering television, a book I'm trying to read, my ruck sack packed with one change of civilian clothes, some toiletries and my enlistment papers, and that's about it.

Earlier today Sgt. Anderson told me to be back at the recruiting station at 0-dark-thirty. I didn't know what that meant, and when I inquired he looked at me like I just asked him what my penis was for, and simply said "4:30 am."

It's already midnight, but I can't sleep. It's funny; my place is totally empty, but I still watch TV in the living room and sleep on the air mattress in the bedroom. I don't know why I don't just put everything in one room. Even when everything totally changes, I still operate in the shadow of my former life.

As I sit there alone in a lawn chair, weird thoughts go through my head. I think back about a book I read in high school, Siddhartha. It's a fictional account of the early life of the Buddha, written by Herman Hesse. The Buddha was a rich and indulgent prince who left everything he had, abandoned his material success , and chose a path of extreme hardship and deprivation, which eventually led him to enlightenment. I can relate to him now, and I feel like I am kinda following that path. In high school, I hated that book. I thought it was nothing more than simplistic crap, written by a failure trying to justify his failures. Of course, I was an idiot 17 year old. It makes a lot more sense to me now.

Why did I do this? Why did I give up my life to start over in the Army? Why did I give up potentially millions of dollars a year in income to squeak by on the embarrassingly low wage the army pays its enlisted soldiers? Why did I give up such opulent luxury for such incredible hardship and toil? Why did I give up public accolades for private struggle?

There are many answers, but each one boils down to this: Every morning, when I wake up and look at myself in the mirror, and ask myself the question, "Are you the man you think you are and want to be? How do you know?", I want to be able to respond, "Yes, Nick, you are, and here is the proof."

Right now, I can only say, "I don't know."

The gates of manhood are guarded by the demons of men's souls, and those demons differ for each man. That is the test of manhood; to find what those demons are, and then to slay them. That is the only way the gates can be made to open. My demon is that I am not sure if I am the man I want to be.

You cannot know who you are or what you are capable of until you face adversity. You cannot know the strength of the steel you hold until it strikes something solid. And you cannot know what kind of man you are until you look hardship and difficulty in the eye, face it, and rise to it's challenge. Without that test, you just don't know.

But it's not just that. It's not just about chasing my demons to prove that I'm a man. There is more to it.

You ever sit at your desk at work and think to yourself, "This isn't what I am meant to be; my life is supposed to be somewhere else." I feel like that has been my whole life up to this point.

I liked undergrad and had fun, but the whole time I had a nagging feeling that I was wasting time. I worked on Wall Street after school for a little bit, and didn't have time to think about that. 100 hour work weeks will do that to you. Then I went to B-School, and that feeling came back. It wouldn't go away; sort of like a scab that won't heal because you keep picking at it. The feeling went away for awhile when I met Lauren, but came back quickly. It always came back, no matter what I did to avoid it.

Even though I know I hated my old life and that I am supposed to be doing something else, I am a little nervous because I am not sure that this is what I am meant to do. I think it is, it feels right, but I guess I won't know for sure until I do it. But right now, I do know that for the first time I can remember since high school when I signed my letter of intent to play my college sport, I feel great about the direction my life is heading.

I guess one way to know if I made the right choice is to look at what happened in my life after I made the choice. To wear the decision, as psychologists say.

Let's look at me right now: It is my last night before I start on a drastically new course in my life, and I am totally alone. My family has essentially left me to my fate. My fiancee is irretrievably angry at me. My friends are elsewhere, living their own lives. I wonder what this says about who I've associated with in my life, that no one is here with me right now. That at my moment of deepest meaning, I face my demons alone.

I guess that it tells me that I made the right decision. If I had the life I wanted, then I'd have the sort of people around me who'd stand by me through this. At the very least, the sort of people who would see me on my way. But I don't.

I stayed up all night. I was so anxious to get going I actually walked from my place to the recruiting office. It was pretty fucking far. It was kinda fun though, walking through the city in the crisp January cold for the last time as a civilian. It was the first time I could remember in forever actually enjoying New York.

I flew from New York to Atlanta, where I was to get on a bus that would take me to Columbus, Georgia, where Ft. Benning is located, to begin Basic Training. I don't remember anything from the time I got into the recruiter's car until I got to the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. Nothing. I honestly could not tell you any detail about my trip from NYC to Atlanta. I'm not even sure if I flew out of La Guardia, Kennedy or Newark. I don't know if I had a layover somewhere. The only thing I distinctly remember is that I saw Gallagher in the Atlanta airport. No shit, as I was walking to the recruit assembly point, Gallagher walked by and a bunch of guys got his autograph and talked to him. It was really weird.

Before getting on the plane, we were told to go to a specific point in the Atlanta Airport and given written instructions on how to get there. I lnded and got to the waiting area without any problems, and when I got there I saw a woman who had to be a bulldyke, wearing a sweater with three up and three down and nothing in the middle. Sgt. Anderson did give me some Army intro material, and I studied it thoroughly, so I knew that meant she was a Master Sergeant. She was very nice and patient with everyone.

It was late; about 7pm, and I was one of the first ones to get there. Apparently, she had just put a bunch of recruits on the buses, so it was going to be a while before I got on a bus to Fort Benning. As I watched other recruits come and check in with her, I was almost shocked. It looks like someone threw a bag of ass into the washer and then dumped it out in this waiting area.

For real, these guys are straight out of a Saturday night at a mall parking lot in some medium sized rural southern city. All they needed was a few lowered Honda CRV's, neon uncarriages, bad car stereos and skanky women hanging off them to make the picture complete. These idiots are all milling around, talking loudly to each other about how cool they are or bragging about whatever the hell it is they think is important, dressed like goddamn morons. I mean, I love rap music, but I'm not Ludacris so I don't try to pull off a FUBU jersey, and neither should that 5'7" 120lb white doofus with red hair and buck teeth.

I can't stop thinking to myself--Are these the other recruits? What kind of fucking Army am I going into? The Wigger Nation?

I just read my book and ignore everyone. These can't the guys I am enlisting with. They must be going to non-combat MOS's [Military Occupational Specialties, the term the Army uses for a job is MOS]. I know I am going into SF and those guys are serious operators, much better than standard infantry, so there a little disparity is to be expected between who I go to Basic with and who I end up serving with, but still--there is no way these fucking scrubs could serve in a legitimate mainline infantry unit.

At about 10pm she divided us up into BCT and OSUT groups. BCT is Basic Combat Training. They are the ones who are going into non-infantry, non-combat MOS's, and are only at Ft. Benning for 8 weeks. They train totally separately from the infantry. OSUT is One Station Unified Training, meaning that you do your Basic Combat Training and the specific school for your particular MOS together. When you go into a combat MOS, like the infantry, you go to OSUT at Ft. Benning and spend 14 weeks there and get both schools done at once.

Much to my shock, about 90% of the tools in the waiting area are going with me to OSUT infantry training. For real, I am having problems describing the average quality of these characters. It looked like a line at a soup kitchen. If you saw most of these guys on the street, you'd cross to the other side, if for no other reason than to avoid the smell. Wanna be thugs, broke ass gangsters, redneck retards, homeless street urchins--every major sub group of social misfit has representation here. I am dressed in a white t-shirt, khaki pants, and shoes, and I almost feel like I am overdressed.

They load us onto a Greyhound-type bus and we started the two hour drive to Columbus, Georgia, home of Fort Benning.

I am sitting next to some lanky kid who couldn't stop shaking. I try to tell him to relax, but he doesn't pay attention to me and just keeps shaking. They play a movie on the bus. I couldn't tell you what it was. I think I may have dozed off for a second, but I distinctly remember the bus stopping at the gate to Ft. Benning.

It was about midnight by the time we got there. We pulled up to a side gate, which kinda surprised me. It's not like I expected a 60 piece brass band to be waiting for us, but I thought we'd at least come in the front.

There was a humvee parked next to a tent beside the gate. It was bitter fucking cold outside, and a female soldier came out of the tent, wrapped in a fatigue blanket with an M-16 on her back. I catch myself thinking, "It is way to cold to have to pull this bullshit guard duty. What a shitty job." Then I realize I am on this bus to get trained to basically do her job or some variation of it. That was kinda sobering.

She talked to the driver for a second, then opened the gate.

Ft. Benning isn't like the Army bases you see in the movies. It is big and spread out, and of course really dark since it was midnight. All I saw as we meandered through the base was open soccer fields and plain looking buildings.

We drove for about three minutes. As the bus pulled into the parking lot in front of a non-descript brick building, I see a man standing in the middle of the parking lot, hands on his hips, in pressed fatigues, shiny black boots and a Drill Sergeant hat.

He looks real pissed off.

If you read the last entry, you might be able to guess what my Christmas was like.

On the 20th, the day after I signed up and told my fiancee what I had done, she had her lawyer and some movers clear the place out. When I say clear the place out, I wasn't exagerrating. She took everything that wasn't a personal possession of mine or wasn't cemented into the place. ALL the furniture, most of the light fixtures, one of the mini-fridges, just about everything. She actually did take some personal possessions of mine; specifically, every gift she had ever given me. The bitch literally took GIFTS she had given me; dress shirts, belts, a bottle of cologne. It was crazy.

You know how a house looks when you move in the first time? Well, except for my closet, my place looked emptier than that. It looked like it had been looted.

I enlisted on a Thursday, quit my job and had my brownstone cleaned out on Friday, and immediately drank myself into a stupor that I didn't come out of until Monday morning. As in Monday, December 24th. For 72 hours I was either drunk, passed out, fucking, or some combination of the three. My friend Shawn and I must have dropped five grand between us partying, drinking, and seducing women. I wish someone had followed me around, because I think I had some nights to rival Kid Rock, but I can't really remember anything except a lot of shots, a lot of toasts, and a lot of loud music.

I was totally naked and my body kinda stuck to the mattress because the heat was turned way up in my place and I had no sheets between me and the plastic air mattress.

Next to me, nearly falling off the mattress, was a naked girl with a great body. I vaguely remember her; I am pretty sure that she is Ukrainian. I know this because I have a memory of picking her up by speaking her native language to her.

I know a little Ukrainian because I'm one of those weird people that can pick up languages in no time just by listening to native speakers. When I got home from backpacking around Europe after college, I spoke one language like a native, complete with regional vernacular (Spanish--I took it in high school and college, and can even get the Castilian lisp correct), three languages nearly fluently (French, Italian and Portugese--they are all related to Spanish) and three more passably (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian--they come from the same root langauage and are very similar to each other). [Side note: if you are a single guy, MAKE THAT TRIP. I spent most of my time in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Eastern Europe is full of beautiful women that want nothing more than to marry an American guy who will take them to the States, and will do anything to accomplish this goal. And Mediterranean women are just plain HOT. And when you are American and speak their language--you are fucking every day. God, I miss those days.]

Of course, even though I could tell her that she's beautiful or ask her where the bar is in Ukrainian, I had no idea what her name was. Or even if the sex was any good. I decided to wake her up for a morning quickie.

Merry Christmas, Nick.

I went to a very awkward Christmas dinner with my family. My father acted almost like nothing had happened, my mother kept breaking into tears, and my sister just talked about all her whorish girlfriends and metrosexual boyfriends. I just drank the Far Niente as fast as I could and tried to get the hell out of there.

I got my parents a Chagall lithograph that a friend of mine picked up for me from an estate sale. He had it in his office, which is the only reason my ex-fiancee didn't get it. My mom opened it and broke into tears, and my dad thanked me with a handshake. They gave me, no shit, a really nice, expensive set of Tods luggage.

Nick "What is this for?"
Mom "Well, I thought you might need something to take all your stuff with you to the Army."

I guess their personal shopper had a hard time with my gift this year. At least she's trying. I guess its really hard for her especially. My mom doesn't understand this, what I'm doing or why. All she knows is that her only son is going to war, and she has no idea how to deal with it.

I gave my sister a gift certificate to Betsy Johnson. Shopping for her is pointless. She gave me, I swear to god, a box set of Saving Private Ryan DVDs and a swiss army knife. Thanks. A film where everyone dies and a knife I can't even take with me to Basic. She's 20, she doesn't know what the fuck is going on either.

I left early and bought a 27 inch TV and a lawn chair, and went back to my place and watched TV alone the rest of the night. And I drank more. Yeah, I was kinda depressed a little, but I had another reason to get hammered. It was my last night before I had to start serious training. I was shipping in less than three weeks, I might was well get fucked up alone on Christmas.

The next day, I wake up around 11. It's so nice not having an alarm clock. I am still on the air mattress. There is no reason to buy anything else with so little time before I leave, and I'm not going to be starting any relationships, so I'm not embarassed about sleeping like a vagrant. It's actually kinda fun; I feel like I'm camping out or something, like I'm living outside of my life.

Since I am now officially unemployed, I have nothing to do but workout and finish tying up loose ends. I have to sell my place, or at least rent it out, get all my finances in order, and...well I guess I don't have any stuff to sell. I'll just put my civilian clothes in storage.

The first thing I do on the 26th is call a real estate agent that I know. She comes over to see the place and tells me what I already know: The real estate market in New York is awful right now, still only three months after 9/11. I tell her I need to sell in two weeks. She laughs outloud at me in her obnoxious South Jersey cackle, and tells me that maybe if I gave it away for free I could get title transferred by then.

Remember that scene in Wall Street where Charlie Sheen has to sell his condo and the real estate lady is squawking to him about how bad the market is, and he snaps at her, "JUST FUCKING SELL IT!" That's what I feel like doing right now. I hate dealing with this shit.

If I try to sell my place now I would only get about 75% of what I paid,and it could take up to two months to make the sale and do all the paperwork. I can't deal with this while I am in Basic, so I end up deciding to lease my place out. I hire a rental company to manage and rent my place, and they just deposit the rent minus eight percent in an account I set up. I can't get enough in rent to cover my mortgage, so I set up my account with enough in it to cover the difference each month for the next year, and then set up a payment system so that everything is taken care of automatically each month. Hopefully the NYC real estate market will rebound enough that I can sell that place after Basic or the Q Course and at least make most of my money back.

Even though I signed up on December 19th, I had started seriously contemplating this move in July, and had even started working out more in October. I was a college athlete, and I still work out so I am in good shape, but from what I've read, I'm not in military shape.

According to several sources that I consulted, including Tom Clancy's book, Special Forces, spec ops standard time is 40 minutes for a 5 mile run. That's an average of eight minutes a mile. I hadn't run anything more than the 91 feet of a basketball court since freshman year of college, but the first time I did a 5 mile run, my time was 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, I only made it about 2.5 miles before I quit. I had work to do.

I got ahold of the military PT test charts to see where I was. Once you enlist, you have to take a PT test, and you must pass a certain score to even stay in the Army. The minimums are a joke, and I wasn't worried about passing those, but I wanted to get a perfect score. If I was going to be in SF, I should be in great shape.

For my age group, a perfect score meant 75 push-ups, 80 sit-ups, and a 13 minute two mile run. I took a self-administered PT test in October, before I even went into the recruiting office, and the first time I did pretty poorly. 45 pushups, 55 situps, and a 15 minute two mile run time. That kinda sucks, especially for me.

The problem is that I am weight room strong. I can bench press and squat a decent amount of weight, and I am still a pretty good sprinter, but from what I have read and know about training, that type of strength is not what is emphasized in the Army. Raw strength and short bursts of speed don't help when you need to march 40 miles with a 100 pound rucksack on. And being able to bench 225 pounds 10 times doesn't really help you knock out 80 push-ups in two minutes. They are different types of strengths; one is about moving a lot weight a few times, one is about moving a little weight many times, and the muscles develop differently depending on how you work them. The military wants endurance, not just raw strength, so I had to change my workout regimen.

Sgt. Anderson had given me a basic Army PT session to use as my workout regimen; it was all body weight exercises and nothing with weights. Push-ups, sit-ups, butter-fly kicks, jumping jacks--all shit like that. After two days of that, I was a mess. My body wasn't used to that type of workout. I called Sgt Anderson, kinda worried. If I was supposed to be in shape, how the fuck could I have so much trouble with this?

Sgt. Anderson "Stop your bitching son. You'll be fine. Your scores will improve dramatically once we get you on some Army chow and your body gets used to this. You do all that gym crap, which is worhtless. I've been doing this shit for fifteen years, it's easy for me now, and you'll get there too."

Thanks, that's not helping me with sore muscles now.

I also had to learn how to ruck. Rucking is walking long distances with a heavy pack on your back, and is apparently a staple for all special forces. Sounds easy right? Try it. Do what I did: Go to an Army surplus store, buy a ruck sack (they run about 50$), load it up with clothes and maybe a weight or two so that it's at least 50 pounds, and then go for a walk. And walk. And walk. And walk. Ten miles later, your lower back feels like its been beaten with a sledge hammer, your ankles are ready to snap, your feet are aching and numb, and your shoulders are so sore they feel like they are fire. And then the next day, your ass muscles are so sore you have to sleep on your side. It's not fun, but apparently soldiers in the field, especially spec ops guys, walk almost everywhere and most of the time they need to carry everything with them, so rucking is a very important skill. And it is a skill; there is even a way to walk, keeping your leg sorta straight and mainly using your butt muscles to pull your body along. It sounded weird to me until I actually tried it.

I really kicked it into high gear starting December 26th. My Christmas day binge was the last drop of alcohol I had before I enlisted. I ran and worked out for an hour or more in the morning, then rucked in the park in the afternoon. It was kinda funny walking around Central Park with a huge ruck on my back, cops and homeless people staring at me like I was crazy. If they only knew.

By the time the New Year rolled around, I was within 5 sit-ups of a perfect PT test score, and could do a 10 mile ruck pretty easily.

I spent New Year's Eve alone. I was too amped, scared and excited to do anything. I went to the movies instead. Black Hawk Down was playing. How ironic. I actually watched the movie twice, completely through. I wasn't sure how to feel about it. It's well done and all, but it didn't scare me or excite me; it more just focused me. It made me more resolute in my determination. I don't know how else to explain it.

The next week I did nothing but eat well, workout two or three times a day, and read everything I could about the military, the special forces, and anything related to field craft I could find.

Ironically, that week I spent alone reading and working out is why I started this journal, which turned into this blog. I couldn't find anything that gave me a representative feel of what it was truly like to be in the military, and a day to day, anthropological viewpoint of military life. There may be books out there like that, but I couldn't find them. I am going to end up going in almost totally blind. I called and asked Sgt. Anderson about this also.

Sgt. Anderson "Son, you're enlisted. How many fucking times are you going to call me with this piddly shit. It's the holidays and you are about to spend four years in the Army. Go get some pussy or something."
Nick "Sgt., don't fuck with me. This is serious. I'm not an 18 year old. I want to know everything I can."
Sgt. Anderson "Look, son, you'll figure it out on your own as you go. There really isn't much to tell that isn't in those high speed books of yours. Relax. You're going to be fine."

Thanks, that was helpful.

Before I knew it, it was January 8th. I ship tomorrow.

Joining the Army was the easiest part.

Telling the people in my life--my mother, my father, my fiancée and my friends--was the hard part.

After MEPS the recruiter dropped me off at my place. I had just enlisted in the Army. I knew I had to tell everyone, but I had no idea how to do it. I was truly baffled. In 21 days I had to fly to Ft. Benning and start Basic Training, but between then and now, I didn't know what to do.

I figured I would start with the easiest target and see how it went, so I called my best friend Shawn. He and I went to B-School together, and he knows me about as well as anyone on earth.

Shawn "What's up Nick?"
Nick "I enlisted in the Army today."
Shawn "Yeah, right."
Nick "No--I'm dead serious. I ship in three weeks."
Shawn "What? You're joking."
Nick "I'm not joking at all. I am 100% serious."
Shawn "What the fuck? Where are you? What time is it? Meet me at [a Midtown bar] right now."Over Guinness, I tried to answer his main question: Why? I laid it out for him, step by step.

I decided to tell Shawn about Pa-paw, my grandfather. If there is anyone on earth who I ever felt close to, in that intimate way reserved only for family, it was my mother's father, Pa-paw.

He was a WWII vet who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross as a Marine Captain fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. His platoon was ambushed and got pinned down by a Japanese machine gun nest. He carried four wounded men, one by one, out of heavy fire and then stormed the machine gun nest by himself, taking it out and saving what was left of his platoon.

He never told anyone about it. I only know the story from my Aunt Tilly because she was there the day one of the men in Pa-paw's platoon came by their house a few years after the war with his wife and two kids. He thanked Pa-paw for saving his life and recounted the entire graphic tale to the family. Aunt Tilly said that when the man gave his infant son to Pa-paw to hold, and told him his name--the same name as Pa-paw--that it was the only time she ever saw Pa-paw cry.

I used to beg Pa-paw to tell me stories, but he never would. He died when I was about 12. Before his death I was young and would ask him wholly inappropriate things. One time I wasked him how many people he killed in the war. He got serious, which was very unusual for Pa-paw when dealing with me. He picked me up and put me on his knee, and said:

"Nick, those were different times when different things were expected. My country needed me, so I answered the call. I'm not proud of what happened, but I am proud that I served. Very little else in life is as important as being there when your family and your country need you. That is what being a man is about."

When I was finished with the story, Shawn paused to digest it.

Shawn "That's deep man, no question, but Nick: Is this a 9/11 thing or is it about you? I mean, I didn't know Pa-Paw, but it seems to me that he served because had to; because he knew that his country needed his leadership. And I'm not saying that you wouldn't be a great asset to the military...but Nick: Why are YOU serving? Is it really because your country needs you to, or because of something else?"

That was like getting a Pedro Martinez curveball when you're expecting a Little League fastball.

We both were living in New York on 9/11. I saw the second plane hit Tower Two from the office building I worked in. I watched the towers go down. I remember seeing people jump out of the windows because they had no other way out. Shawn and I both lost friends that day.

But until that moment, 9/11 hadn't seriously crossed my mind as a reason I was serving. I know that may sound unrealistic, but it's true.

There is a reason for this though. I was something of a minor terrorism expert, having been a political science major in college and having done my Senior honors thesis on Clinton's poor counter-terrorism policy, I knew long before 9/11 the threats that existed and that we were woefully unprepared for a serious attack. It saddened me deeply when it did happen, but it didn't surprise me either. I knew my country needed me long before that day.

It took me a beer or two, but I finally answered Shawn's question:

Nick "I think it's both. Yes, someone has face our enemies, because there is no question that this fight is for our very way of life, and I want to preserve that, but that's not the only reason I'm doing this. This is about wanting to be me, wanting to be happy, wanting to be excited to get up in the morning. If I was happy in my current life would I still want to go? I don't know man. I don't know what I would do if I was happy right now, and it really doesn't matter. I'm not happy. I've wanted to do this for a long time and whatever the reason, right or wrong, my country needs me and can use me, and I'm going."
Shawn "There's no way I can talk you out of it?"
Nick "I almost did this after high school, but my dad talked me out of it. I almost did this after college, but the girl I was dating then talked me out of it. There is no way I'm being talked out of it a third time. I'm going. I've already signed the papers.""
Shawn "Alright man...you know I'm behind you, and I wish you the best of luck. I just hope you find what you're looking for."
Nick "Huh...no shit...me too."

Slightly buzzed, I walked the several blocks to my house. I knew my fiancee would be home, and I knew I had to tell her next. I had been dreading this moment, not because of her reaction or anything she could do to me, but because I knew she would be devastated. I finally had to confront the thing I had ignored in this decision: the affect it would have on the other people in my life. Enlisting may have been brave, but not telling anyone before I went and did it probably wasn't.

There was a time I loved her, but that time has long since passed. I know it and I think she does also, but she is so wrapped up in being the fiancee of a semi-prominent New York businessman/socialite that she's forgotten why we even got together in the first place. What used to be packed lunches on a blanket in Central park has become dinner with a similarly unhappy couple at Tavern on the Green. What used to be romantic nights alone laughing at South Park and making love on the sofa has become nights spent at Denise Rich's charity events or some stupid new art exhibit. We used to cuddle and listen, and now we primp and gossip. She is not the woman I fell in love with.

On the way to the house, I decided she could keep the ring, the house, the clothes, the car, everything she wanted. If I was getting my freedom, I could at least give her the stuff that had meant so much to her.

It is nearly three years since that day in January, but I remember it as clearly as if it happened last night. I came in the house and she was getting ready for some event we had later that night. She was in her walk-in closet, deciding on what to wear.

Nick "Lauren, I need to talk to you."
Lauren "Honey, do you think these new Jimmy Choo's go best with the grey Chanel or the black Prada? I can't decide."
Nick "Put that down and look at me. We need to talk."
Lauren "OK...what's wrong."
Nick "I enlisted in the Army today. I leave in 21 days."

She knew me well enough to know that the tone in my voice was sincere. Shock is not a powerful enough word to describe the look on her face.

In the back of my mind, I hoped maybe she'd be supportive. I thought that maybe our relationship was about something other than social status and financial resources; maybe she'd understand why I had to do this, understand my motivations, and want to stay friends with me. I dreamed about her maybe even sending me care packages when I'm in Basic.

It was not to be. She was not happy.

I don't want to describe the whole conversation I had with her, but it did not go well. Her emotions started off with shock, turned into confusion, and then became angry. She ended up very, very upset. There was a lot of screaming, mostly on her part, things were broken, and two emotional hours later she left to spend the night with a friend.

I decided to go ahead and get it all done at once, so I called my parents. It was sort of late, about 10pm, but my dad agreed to meet me out for a drink.

I told him what I did. My father and I have never had any sort of relationship that could be described as close. He has never understood me, never really been able to see outside of himself enough to see who I was and spent most of my youth working long hours, and as a result we've never been comfortable with each other. His reaction was predictable. He was fairly unemotional about it, failed to fully grasp any of my reasons or my motives, and almost acted indifferent in a way. I almost got the feeling that he was looking at me and realizing that even though I was something of a "success" as a son, he was a failure as a father.

After that short and uncomfortable discussion, I met up with some friends and got completely obliterated. As drunk as I'd been in years. I wanted to celebrate one thing, and forget another. But all I really ended up doing was getting piss-drunk and throwing up in the bathroom of some stupidly trendy club. They can afford to clean up after me when I'm paying $15 a drink.

I woke up on my friends sofa at around 1pm the next day. I had turned my cell phone off the night before, and when I powered it back up I had 18 new messages. Six of those were from Lauren--she was still fuming. Four from my mother--all of them she was crying and in hysterics. A few were from the friends of mine that Shawn had already told, and a bunch were from my secretary. My company is the type that frowns heavily on absenteeism and unexcused lateness. They also don't appreciate when a key team member decides to get drunk and pass out on a friend's couch instead of showing up for a huge client presentation.

I love the movie Office Space--as does anyone who works in corporate America--and that morning I sort of had a moment like the main character Peter did when he went to the hypnotist. It was amazing. After going through with this and telling everyone who had to know, all my bullshit cares were gone. I felt new and refreshed, as if the petty problems of my life no longer affected me. It was the first time in years I'd woken without an alarm going off. I went out on the balcony--the sky was clear, the sun was out and the world felt fresh and new to me. I know it's a cliché, but for the first time since I could remember, I heard birds chirping. Can you believe that shit? Fucking birds chirping. I never imagined the day would come where I would appreciate such a commonplace sound. There was plenty for me to be sad or worried about, but for the first time in forever, all I could feel was optimism. I was genuinely excited about my future.

I had to tell my company what I did, so decided to do something I'd dreamt about while spending many late nights at the office.

Without even changing out of my clubbing outfit, I took a cab to my office. My company has about 10 floors in a major skyscraper in New York City. You've probably read about my company in the Wall Street Journal, seen pundits talk about our stock on CNBC, seen our CEO interviewed on The Bloomberg Report, and have almost certainly used our products or services in some form or another. Without going into specifics, trust me when I tell you that we are evil. My company, in more ways than you can imagine, embodies everything that is wrong with corporate America, and the CEO is the ringleader.

I charged past the receptionist at the CEO's office and threw open his oak double doors. The CEO was on the phone when I came in, and as he saw me he hung the phone up without saying anything to the person on the other end and immediately started in on me.

CEO "Where the fuck where you today? And what the fuck do you think you are doing charging in here like some sort of king. Let me tell you something, you bastard, because you weren't there our fucking client decided not to..."

All the way to office, I had rehearsed my speech. I planned out every nuance, every point I was going to make, every snide remark and double entendre; it was going to be the best quitting speech of all time. But when he launched into his standard "verbally assault my subordinate because I'm angry about something" approach to management, I stopped listening to what he was saying and lost track of my train of thought as I started thinking about what a horrible person he is, and how much he was individually responsible for my unhappiness and the misery of so many at my company.

This was a man who once ripped a young junior executive for a minor typo in a memo in front of the entire executive committee for twenty minutes, reducing him nearly to tears. He routinely berates and verbally harrangues low level employees for the smallest reasons, taking out his frustrations with the world on the most defenseless, the ones who need their jobs the most.

CEO "...and that goddamn incompetent Williams fucking botched all your questions..."

This is a man who regularly cheats on his wife and openly favors those executives who do the same with him. He spends literally hundreds of thousands of the company's dollars on frivolous bullshit for his wife and mistress while at the same time reducing benefits for lower rung employees.

CEO "...and let me tell you another thing: I don't like your fucking attitude recently. You've been aloof, insubordinate, and just plain pissed me off..."

This is a man who promoted me so fast because I showed a knack for breaking and manipulating the rules, and used those promotions as leverage on me to get me to help cook the books to hide all of his fiscal mismanagement.

CEO "...furthermore, your work has been shitty the last three months, and I'm thinking about fucking demoting you from your VP slot. I guess you're just to young to handle the responsibility..."

This is a man who once fired a secretary because he thought she didn't pay him the proper respect by getting out of a full elevator so he could get on. This is a man who once made his personal secretary come in and work on the day of her son's high school graduation and nearly caused her to miss it so that he could have the new fixtures delivered for his new house.

CEO "...I don't know who the fuck you think you are. I made you here, and I'll break you just as easily..."

All the horror stories you have heard over the past three years about out of control CEO's--he could have been the posterboy for them.

As he came to the conclusion of his angry screed, he made the mistake of walking around his desk to get in front of me, and pointed his finger in my face.

CEO "So what do you have to fucking say for yourself?"
Nick "Get your finger out of my face."
CEO "I'LL POINT AT YOU ALL I WANT! I RUN THIS FUCKING PLACE AND YOU ANSWER TO ME! NOW SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

As he said that, he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me into the seat behind me.

I played a major sport in college and though I'm not as large as say, a bouncer at Scores [ed note: a famous NYC strip club with NFL linbacker-sized bouncers], I am tall and strong and can be an imposing physical figure when I want to be. He is a weasley 5'10" and has all the muscle of an accountant without a gym membership.

I slowly rose from the chair and as soon as I looked down at him, his entire demeanor immediately and radically changed. Have you ever been in a situation where one person thought they had a clear and obvious upper hand and thus acted without any fear of repercussion, but seen the look on their face when they realize that they've been flipped? That not only are they not in a position of total power, but that they in fact are totally fucked? You know that look, the almost primal look of fear and terror that comes over their face?

Right then, right there, as he rapidly backed up around his desk, he knew that all his bullshit power over the lives and fortunes of his employees could not save him. That his ability to get last minute Broadway tickets, or to fuck the most expensive escorts, or get into the best Hamptons parties, or to buy and sell companies--at that moment, none of it meant anything. I tore off the veneer of invincibility he'd wrapped around himself, and he knew he was absolutely powerless. There is no greater harm you can do to a weak man who has created a powerful position for himself than to pierce that veil and reveal to him what he truly is.

He went from Authoritative Asshole CEO to Petrified Dipshit in about 0.3 seconds. He tried to reach for his phone, presumably to call security, but I took the base and ripped the cord out of the wall. He then kinda moved as if to get around his desk, so I took the entire desk and flipped it over. He was cornered and absolutely terrified.

I slowly approached him, and he tried one last bluster:

CEO "Get away from me. I'll have you arrested!! I'LL SUE!!"

I grabbed him by his lapels and slammed him up against the floor to ceiling window looking over Times Square. His head made a satisfying thud as it bounced off the reinforced plexiglass. The corners of his mouth started to froth he was so afraid.

Nick "I quit. Effective immediately. Bitch."

So much for my grand speech.

When I let go of his suit he collapsed into a frightened heap on the floor. I didn't stay to watch, but I'm pretty sure I saw his eyes welling up with tears.

I realize how immature it was, and that it cost me tens of thousands in severance and stock options, but it was worth every cent. It was the best I'd ever felt in my life.

I calmly walked to my office and started packing my stuff in a box. It seemed like only seconds passed before people started pouring into my office. Wildfire has nothing on the the speed of gossip at my office. By the time I left, my office was nearly in a frenzy. CEO had demanded that the security guards throw me out, but I knew all of them and he didn't, so basically they just stood next to me and watched as I took my time getting my stuff together. I said goodbye to my friends and left without further incident.

When I got home, by that time it was around 5pm, there were movers going in and out of my townhouse and an attorney waiting for me at the front door.

Snake lawyer "Mr. Sadler? I am [Snake Lawyer], I represent Ms. [Lauren], your ex-fiancee. Please do not try to interfere. I have a temporary restraining order allowing--"

Nick "She can have anything she wants."
Snake lawyer "Excuse me?"
Nick "I said she can have anything she wants. I don't care."
Snake lawyer "What do you mean, 'anything she wants?'"

I really hate lawyers.

Nick "If you see it in or on or around this townhouse, she can have it. I'd like to keep my clothes and my golf clubs, but other than that, all of this is hers if she wants to take it. Is that clear enough?"

The snake lawyer immediately got on his cell phone and walked away from me.

Lauren helped me pick out this house, decorated it, moved in with me, and it is nothing to me but a representation of our relationship. What the am I going to do with all this antique furniture and expensive drapery? I'd just sell it anyway and since I don't really need the money that badly, I might as well just let her have it.

Snake lawyer "OK, I've just talked to my client, and she wishes to take everything in the house that is not a personal possession of yours. You are in agreement with this arrangement? I can have my office courier papers to this effect over here immediately."

I just walked away. I don't want to deal with this.

As I was leaving, I called my lawyer, told him the situation, and of course he flipped out. He insisted that he rush over to my place to stop it, but I told him in no uncertain terms to not interfere, and that he could go watch over my boxers and aftershave for $400 an hour if he wants, but I didn't care about any of the other stuff and she could have it if she wanted it.

I got in a cab and went to my grandfathers grave. He wasn't buried in Arlington, instead opting to be buried in his family plot, near New York City. I got to the cemetery, and even though I knew where his grave was, I never actually made it there. Almost as soon as I got there, I felt stupid and I left.

I hope this doesn't sound melodramatic or silly, but even though I'd been there before, I honestly felt like at this point, I didn't have the right to go to his grave. I wanted to go to his grave as a man he can be proud of, and the man I want to become instead of the man I am now. I've taken the first step in the journey, and it is an important one, but it's only one step. I decided to come back when I had finished the journey. I wanted to stand at Pa-paw's grave and know he's proud of me, and I don't know that right now.

By the time I got back it was 10pm and my townhome was almost totally empty. She really did want everything. She even took the light fixtures in the guest bathroom. They are expensive and imported, so I guess it makes sense. All that was left was my clothes, my personal effects, a case of beer and a few condiments in the fridge, and my books. That was it. It looked like looters had come in and taken away my life.

If I was prone to drama, I would point out how this scene is a perfect fucking allegory for the larger events in my life, but I won't. I cracked open a beer and called Shawn.

Nick "Dude, I need to hang out tonight."
Shawn "Cool. Where do you want to meet?"
Nick "Stop by here first, but can you bring some things with you?"
Shawn "Yeah, what'chu need?"
Nick "A 27 inch TV and some lawn chairs."
Shawn "What?"
Nick "Just stop by. You'll understand when you get here."

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.

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.