The day of MEPS starts fairly early, 8am, when I show up at the recruiters office to finish up the last paperwork I need to take. It takes over four hours to square everything away. I was supposed to do all this the day before, but I started work at Subway and wasn't able to come in and take care of the paperwork in advance. The shuttle van to Montgomery MEPS arrives at 11:30 to pick me up, but we don't actually leave till 12:20, after frantically cramming freshly printed paperwork into my packet that I have to take to MEPS. The packet contains copies of my personal documents, along with all the paperwork Sgt Lovett and I have been working on for the past month.
The van driver is a very talkative older gentleman named Leroy. He gives us a nice little speech about the trip and what to expect when we arrive. He is a fully retired Navy man, familiar with the service. He drives the shuttle to and from MEPS in Montgomery every day so he has plenty of wisdom to offer. He even offers to quiz us on ASVAB questions, knowing that we will be taking the ASVAB test when we arrive in the evening. There is one other enlistee with me in the van, a 19 year old female named Erica. I introduce myself as soon as I board the van, she is joining the Air Force, and is quite friendly and intelligent; but she's pretty nervous about MEPS. As we start our three hour drive Leroy puts Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and pretty soon we are all three talking conservative politics. Erica has an "ASVAB for Dummies" study book, while I left my study book at home thinking I wouldn't have time for it. We take turns studying the book. We only stop for ten minutes along the way to grab a bite to eat, the delay at the office has ensured we don't have time to do anything but wolf our burgers down. During the second half of the drive I take advantage of Leroy's offer to quiz us and he works with me for about half an hour on math knowledge and simple problems. I mess up a lot but he patiently explains formulas and principles that I knew once, but desperately need to be refreshed on.
MEPS turns out to be on Montgomery Air Force Base. We go through the checkpoint and Leroy drops us off at the MEPS building. He comes in with us to make sure we get signed in, and to pick up a young man who he dropped up the day before. Then Leroy wishes us luck and leaves with his new passenger. An expressionless civilian worker has us scan our index fingers on a little scanner, then he takes a mugshot. He prints out name-tags which we stick to our shirts, then he directs us upstairs for the ASVAB. A kindly middle age gentleman who is the test attendant checks our ids and the test order our recruiters sent with us, then takes us one by one into the test room. The test room is full of computers on desks. At the frontmost desk is the attendant's station. There, he has me scan my index finger again. "This is your magic finger" he says. "You'll need it for everything today and tomorrow, so don't forget your magic finger." I sit down at a computer and start the test. I suppress any nervousness or fear and rationalize that I can't do anything now but do my best on each question. I blow through the test at top speed, except for the math section. I make quite a few educated guesses, but mostly check in an answer I'm confident in. I finish most sections in half the allotted time, but use the whole 36 minutes on math. I agonize over one problem so long the computer pauses the test and pops up a help screen that brings the test attendant over to check on me. Once I'm done with the math I move quickly through the remaining sections. When I finish the test I raise my hand to be led out by the attendant, and I'm shocked to realize that I've finished before all three girls who were taking the test, all of whom started before me, one before I even arrived. The whole test has taken about two hours. I get a bad feeling that I haven't done so well, that I rushed too much and guessed a lot. Reminding me once again about the Magic finger (which I use to submit my test results) the attendant directs me to a large waiting room full of chairs. There's one other young man there who completed his test while I was working on mine. He is sitting with his duffel bag, and a pair of cowboy boots, and is watching pawn stars on a TV on the wall. "Hi I'm Jon" I say. "Justin" he replies, in the slow southern drawl I half-ways expected. "Awesome!" I say. "My best friend just graduated parries Island a month ago, and his name is Justin." Justin tells me that his friend is about to leave for Parris Island too.
I ask Justin what branch he is going into, and he says Army, but he explains that he is very bad at tests, and fears he may not have made the needed score. He is also unsure about what MOS he might be interested in, but he knows he's interested in a civilian career in law enforcement. I know a fair bit about this so I tell him what I know for a few minutes, then we turn our attention to pawn stars. Gradually two of the females join us. Caroline is 25, married, and is joining the National Guard in intel. She's super friendly and hits it off great with Justin and me. She has a master's degree and will be going to OCS to become an officer. The other young lady is very quiet, but also says she is joining the national guard. We all chat cheerfully about the military, and what's on pawn stars till Erica gets done with her ASVAB. She is the last in the test, and she is followed out of the test room by the attendant. The attendant announces that we can call our recruiters to find out our test scores once we leave the building. Cell phones are not allowed at all within MEPS. He guides us to a waiting shuttle van outside that will take us to the hotel, then departs with one last reminder about our magic fingers. In the van we all call our recruiters except for Justin. I am shocked to find that I have scored a 95 out of a possible 99. I scored 71 on the practice test at the recruiter's office and never in my wildest imagination dreamed of scoring over 90. I'm so shocked I ask Sgt Lovett to repeat himself three times before I believe that I've heard correctly. I'm convinced that Leroy's last minute coaching got me through the math. I can tell from the girl's voices that they are happy too, except Erica who's recruiter is new and doesn't know how to get her test scores yet. We all talk cheerfully about our career plans while driving to the hotel. The van drops us off out front of a massive, extremely fancy hotel. The hall is the size of a mall, and we enter with awe. We are directed to a meeting room up a flight of stairs wide enough for two trucks, if you wanted to drive trucks up stairs for some reason.
(This is facing one direction across the midpoint of the Hotel. Yeah, it's big...)
At the meeting room a chubby hotel employee has us sign forms promising to abide by certain rules while at the Hotel, then he briefs us all on the rules and plan for our stay. Boys can't go on the girl's floor and vice versa, no fraternizing outside of public areas, Dinner is served till 9 in a cafe downstairs, dinner vouchers are in our room key packets. Curfew is 10pm, wake up call is at 3:45am. Breakfast is served from 4:15-4:45am, and the bus leaves at 5:00am on the dot. Don't be late. Represent yourselfs well during your stay. The five of us who met at MEPS agree to have dinner together, we also invite a lone girl who was in the meeting room when we arrived. We split up to drop our bags off in our rooms and agree to meet outside the cafe. Since we arrived together Justin and I are roommates, which is cool since we already know each other. The room is nice, but not huge. We drop our bags on a beds, then Justin calls his recruiter and gets disappointing news. He has scored a 30 on the ASVAB, he needs a 31 for Army infantry. He will get to take the physical tomorrow, but not enlist. He will have to come back in 30 days to retake the ASVAB and enlist if he passes. I encourage him to stay motivated, and use those 30 days to study up.
We go down to the lobby around the corner from the cafe and wait for the girls. After about fifteen minutes we wonder where they are. I check the cafe and discover that they went on ahead without us while Justin called his recruiter, leaving us to wait for them like gentlemen while they order their food. We forgive them anyway and sit down at an adjacent table. The cafe is obviously a fairly fancy affair, but a simplified menu with just four options sits on the table before us. Justin orders parmesan chicken, I go for the grilled Tilapia. A half dozen other enlistees are sitting at nearby tables. We share conversation with them periodically, chatting about the fancy hotel, and our excitement and apprehensions about tomorrow. Other topics come up too, like cars, hunting, and booze. To our surprise Justin and I get our food before the four girls, even though they ordered first. We politely wait a few minutes for their food to arrive before eating. They seem impressed and the conversation turns to how much more respectful and gentlemanly military folks are. The food is amazing, restaurant quality, and we polish it off right quick. Eventually we all head off to our rooms around a quarter after 8. Justin and I chat about work, military, and general guy talk while texting our friends and family. We both take showers and I iron my clothes for tomorrow. I want to make a good impression. We lie down and hit the lights at the 10pm curfew, but stay up on our phones for half an hour or more before rolling over to try to sleep. I'm pretty sure I don't actually go to sleep till around midnight. I'm a little nervous, but mostly just excited. Today has been actually a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will be the same.
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