The Pre-MEPS experience

(note: I really don't know why I keep watching Maury. It's all the same shit every day. However, I keep watching.)

So I finally got checked in after signing my 'rules contract.' I got to my room and there was no one there. I was relieved (as I was towards the back of the check-in queue) because I try to avoid roommates at all possible costs with my fiancee (hi hon) being the exception, of course (before anyone says anything, I know that I will have to get over my roommate aversion if I am to succeed in the Navy. I am, however, trying to put that off until the last possible minute).

Within moments, I heard the all-too-familiar sound of the door lock responding to the hotel keycard. I'm a little freaked out -- I didn't want some idiot kid (or worse, some guy who changed his name to CAPT AJ Squared Away when he was 8).

I got lucky. It was this guy Justin (at least I think his name was Justin), who was a bit older and had been out of the Navy for three years. He just got laid off and had a child on the way so he needed to go back in. This time, he chose the Coast Guard -- an organization that is way more 'Family First' than the rest.

We ended up talking about the Navy for hours on end. What it's really like, how to bribe your commanding officers (with candy and nicotine), ribbons, qualifying pins, promotions, and the general bureaucracy of it all. It was quite pleasant -- and I managed to learn way from that than by any recruiter or website.

Later that night, as we were crashing out, the phone rang. It was then that I learned an extremely important lesson:

While the Navy's standards for recruits are pretty low, the Army will take anyone.

On the other end of the line was a somewhat nasal, backwater kid asking if I was going Army. He had a 'specific question that only Army guys can answer.' I told him that I wasn't and I wished him luck in his search for an answer. He asked if I knew the room number of any Army folks. I told him that I did not.

He then asked if I had gone on my MEPS physical yet. I told him that I had not and he decided that it would be a good idea to tell me all about his experience with it. He focused on hernia exam ("turn your head and cough") and finished every testicle-related, unfunny sentence with "it was so funny, man." I actually fell asleep while he was talking for about five minutes. When I came to, he was still speaking about it. It was as though instead of sleeping, I was actually saying "Please, go on. I'm dying to hear about your balls." I told him that it was a pleasure speaking to him but I needed to sleep. He simply said "yeah, sure" and hung up the phone.

I fell asleep promptly.

The Hotel Queue the Night Before MEPS

(note 1: I'm going to try to break these MEPS posts up into small pieces to make it easier to digest. It also gives me more time to focus on watching The Maury Povich Show)
(note 2: MEPS = Military Entrance Processing Station, the processing center to make sure you meet the government's standards)

In order to avoid going to bed around 6:00pm on Tuesday to wake up at 2:00am Wednesday to get my lazy ass downtown to MEPS, Uncle Sam put me up in a hotel the night before. I thought to myself, "Hey, this might not be a bad gig, get to the hotel in the evening and kick it with a beer and a nice meal." Damn, I crack myself up.

The rules (for the uninitiated, I like bulleted lists almost as much as I like PowerPoint Presentations):

• Get there at 4:30pm. Why? So we can stand in the lobby until 5:00pm and wait on line.
• Don't drink. Ok, I get this one -- it was mostly a bunch of 17-18 year old kids waiting to ship off to basic the next day.
• Don't leave the grounds. I understand why that rule exists -- kids would run out, get all sorts of shitty drunk, get arrested, change their minds about going, etc. Not that there was anyway to go anyway -- the hotel was literally across the street from the airport. LAX is not exactly a hot club spot.
• Don't order any movies. Uncle Sam doesn't much care for kids ordering Superbad and/or porn on their dime.

So I got there and I was stuck. And bored.

Waiting on queue to check in, I was admittedly a little intimidated. It was a mix of "Holy shit, this is really happening," and "Holy shit, everyone here looks like the guys who beat the crap out of me all throughout K-12." There were a lot of overweight, overly-inked stevedores on line. Turns out that while they weren't so bright, they were quite nice.

Mostly, however, I was amused by the folks there. A large number of the guys were going into the Navy (as exemplified by the 'gifts' from their overzealous recruiters -- Navy Backpacks, Shirts, Sweats, etc.) and they looked like they had been jerking off to Charlie Sheen in Navy Seals ever since they figured out how their little penises worked.

I'm going to be taking care of these guys? Shit.

This is what they told me what MEPS would be like.

Yeah, not so much. The next post'll be fun.

Introduction

To the 2 of you that read this (me from the present and me from the future) -- welcome.

A little about myself -- I am a schoolteacher living in Los Angeles at the moment and I am starting medical school in the fall (where, however, is a bit shaky as I am waiting to hear from a few schools this late in the game).

Already inundated with graduate school and credit card debt, I knew straight away that there was no way in Hell that I could take out any more loans. That meant I would not be able to afford another four years of schooling -- especially in this financial climate. I'm not even sure if my mutual fund portfolio still exists (my family needs assets right now). If it's still there, I can almost guarantee that it's value is next to nothing (It was worth at least $80k five years ago).

As such, I looked into various scholarships. They were spotty at best:

• I wasn't Jewish enough for the Jewish scholarships,
• I wasn't politically active enough for the political scholarships,
• I haven't lived in California long enough for their scholarships,
• I left New Jersey so long ago that I do not qualify for theirs.

Essentially, I lost at life. I looked into other options, and serving with the United States Navy came to the forefront. I have always wanted to serve, and almost did before attending college (I probably would have, but the recruiter creeped me out by showing up at my doorstep before even contacting me).

So here's the deal -- I sign away a chunk of time to them:

• My four years of medical school,
• My internship, residency, and potential fellowship at a Naval Hospital, and
  
• Four years after that.
  

In exchange, I get:

• 100% paid tuition, books, and fees.
  
• $20,000 upfront
• $1,907 a month for all four years.
• Rank of Ensign (O-1) during medcal school, and superceeding to full Lieutenant (O-3) upon graduation.

Not a bad deal.

This blog, if I remember to post (and I promise I'll try), will chronicle not only my Naval life but my adventures in medical school as well.

This should be fun.


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