MEPS Day 2: "Knock three times and wait for permission to enter"

(So long to this pretty hotel room.)

[DISCLAIMER: I said I would be honest, and I will be. This entry contains uncensored versions of events at MEPS. It's not bad, but discretion is advised.] 

My phone alarm goes off at 3:45, followed quickly by a wake up call from the front desk. My roommate Justin and myself immediately get up. We perform vital hygiene and get dressed while talking about how ridiculously early in the morning this is. I don't complain about it though, because I know Marine Corps boot camp gets you up at 4am every day. I have a moment of panic when I finish packing my bag, I can't find the little envelope with my room key and breakfast voucher, and I know I will be in trouble if I don't have these. We search high and low before finding it in the side pocket of my duffel bag. I probably thought that would be a safe place for it and then simply forgot that I put it there. By the time we've found it, it's time to head to breakfast. An employee has a table set up near the elevators on the bottom floor. He takes our room keys and checks us off in his book. We go to the cafe, which is full of people who are there for MEPS, clustered around a dozen tables. Justin and I hit the breakfast buffet and find a pan full of bacon. We agree that bacon is awesome and load up our plates with it, along with scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. Breakfast isn't as good as dinner was last night, but it's ok. There's a lot more people here than we saw last night, so we sit with the same girls, to be near people we know. Erica apparently hardly slept from stress. Her knee bounces a mile a minute all through breakfast. Caroline is mostly just excited. We talk about our expectations and fears of the coming day. Breakfast is over soon and we gather in the lobby of the hotel, with a lot of other enlistees. One is wearing sharp dress pants and shirt, and a vest. He's the nicest dressed in the lobby, and stands out like a sore thumb. I ask him what's up with that and he says his recruiter just told him to dress up, and wasn't specific. So he overdid it to be safe. Turns out he is also joining the Marine reserve as an 0621 Field Radio Operator, so we hit it off pretty quick. He's talkative and sarcastic and we shoot sarcastic barbs back and forth periodically for the rest of the day. A coach bus shows up at 4:50 and everyone boards. Justin and I sit in the back and meet a couple more guys. The bus departs right at 5, as promised. I hope everybody made it on. 

(The MEPS bus departing at 0500)

It's only a short drive to MEPS, at the gate to the Air Force Base an AF sergeant gets on the bus and has us all hold up our ids. Then the bus continues to the MEPS building where another Air Force sergeant boards and briefs us on what to do. Sign in by scanning your index finger at the front desk. Go through security, stow your bag in the locker room straight ahead, then come out and enter the room on your right and sit down. We follow instructions and end up in what looks like a break room or briefing room. It has rows of chairs facing one direction on one side of the room, with scattered chairs and a pool table on the other side. As the rest of the enlistees drift in we get a picture of roughly how many people there are. I estimate about 50. Once everybody is seated in the room a civilian employee simply tells us that we will go upstairs to see our service liaisons for instructions. He calls Marine Corps up first and I get to see how many of us there are. Just four of us. We wait in a line at the front of the room while the worker has the rest of the branches line up behind us. Army and national guard has the most, around half of the enlistees, Air Force and Navy share the rest. Once everyone is in line he tells us where to go for our liaison and sends us up stairs. 

At the top of the stairs is a large waiting room where I was the night before after the ASVAB. The Marine Corps office is near the stairs. The instructions on the door read "Knock three times and wait for permission to enter." There is a black mat with a set of yellow footprints in front of the door. I'm at the front of the line so I stand on the footprints and knock. After a moment a voice yells "Come in!" and we enter. We line up inside and are greeted by a Staff Sergeant. He takes a list and calls out six names. Only four of us respond. The SSgt seems annoyed but continues anyway. The first thing he does is look up at the last person in line. "Where's your belt?" The youth responds that in his rush to leave he forgot it, he doesn't have one to wear. The SSgt looks at him in disgust and moves on to the next guy, who is wearing basketball shorts and a tee shirt. This guy gets no mercy. "What are you wearing? Do you know what you're supposed to wear? Did you get a briefing from your recruiter? Do you have the proper attire with you?" then finally "Because of you our briefing will be delayed, go change as fast as possible and get back up here." As soon as that fellow is gone the Staff Sergeant tells the well dressed enlistee and myself to make sure we stay dressed as we are for the rest of the day. At this point another young man walks in and gives his name. He is late, and the Staff Sergeant is not happy. But he reluctantly allows him to join us. "Do you know why you're here?" The staff sergeant asks the guy. He starts to say something and is immediately interrupted "No, you don't know why you're here, so don't waste your breath." I struggle to hold my laughter in through all of this. It's funny, but I don't want to show it. 

The poor guy who came in out of uniform returns, dressed properly, and all of us turn in our packets with our paperwork from our recruiters. Then the Staff Sergeant finally briefs us on what he expects of us while we are there. He makes it clear that since we are joining the Corps he holds us to a higher standard. It doesn't matter what other enlistee's do or how they dress, we will be on our best behavior or else. We must remain in dress code at all times. As Marines do not put hands in pockets, we will not put our hands in our pockets. We will sit up in chairs, we will not slouch or put our feet on them. Cell phone usage is absolutely forbidden, we should put our cell phones in our bags downstairs and forget about them till lunch. The Staff Sergeant then has us watch a video on sexual harassment, which I can't help but find amusing. As the video comes to a close I get a whiff of fart, the Staff Sergeant smells it too. "Who did that!" He says intensely. We glance at each other in terror, hoping the guilty party confesses before we all get in trouble. Luckily the sharply dressed fellow sheepishly raises his hand. "It was me sir. I was nervous." The Staff Sergeant just glares at him and says "Well now you're nervous… And you smell like ass…" He asks us if we have all taken the ASVAB, apparently expecting a yes. But the guy who came in out of uniform says no. The Staff Sergeant is incredulous. "Why didn't you take it last night!" The kid says he didn't realize he was supposed to. With an expression and tone oozing utter disdain the Staff Sergeant sends him out of the office to wait for a chance to take the ASVAB. The rest of us each receive a name tag complete with a barcode, and the branch of the military we are joining. We are also issued a folder full of paperwork. This folder will go with us for the entire physical. At each station we will give it to the doctor to fill out, then get it back after the test is done so we can take it to the next station. The briefing concluded, we are directed out into the waiting room, where the chairs are full of enlistees. 

One by one we shift down the rows and have our blood pressure and pulse taken. Then we are sent to a large briefing room. In the briefing room we are issued a pen, a pencil, and a plastic tube in a wrapper, then seated at school desks. The sharp dressed guy and myself find ourselves about halfways to the back of the room. Once everyone is in the room an Air Force officer asks everyone if the hotel arrangements were satisfactory, which we agree it was. She plays a powerpoint covering sexual harassment again, then a civilian employee takes her place and briefs us on each step of the upcoming process. He mentions that at the blood test, if we ate a lot of bacon at breakfast we might show high cholesterol and have to have blood taken again later. Justin is in the row in front of me, we look at each other in horror. Several other guys nearby are face-palming as well. We all ate a lot of bacon at breakfast. 

The doctor reminds us that we will take a blood alcohol test, and a drug test, and that failing the drug test disqualifies you from all services forever. After asking if anyone wants to bow out, he then has us take out our folders full of paperwork and guides us through 15 pages of it step by step. It's mostly medical and history related questionnaires and the whole thing takes about 45 minutes. When we are done we all get a breathalyzer test for alcohol using the plastic tubes we received, and are then sent back to the waiting room. There's not much talk, we've been warned to speak no louder than whispers to avoid disturbing the many tests that are going on in rooms down the hall. As people join lines to different tests down the hall we are scooted down, till eventually it's our turn. The next couple hours are taken up with being rushed from station to station. First I have to pee in a cup alongside two other enlistees while a doctor stands behind and to the side of us. The sharply dressed Marine enlistee is unable to pee because he says he has to go number 2 so bad he can't let loose. They tell him he'll have another chance later. I have no trouble filling my cup and move on. The hearing test is so ridiculous it is the butt of many jokes throughout the rest of the day. Six of us sit in a small room with headphones and clickers that we are supposed to press as soon as we hear a tone. I click furiously at tones until I realize the guy next to me must be deaf because I'm actually hearing mostly his beeps. My sharp dressed Marine enlistee is told that he must later re-take this test as well because his station wasn't working properly. The blood drawing doesn't hurt as much as I feared, and I escape the high cholesterol retake. I also score 20/20 on the eye test with ease. At one point I have to have an interview with a doctor to settle medical and drug history. I'm worried by the time I enter because while waiting in the hall outside the office for my turn another enlistee and myself got yelled at for talking. "Did anybody tell you to run your mouth! No? Then shut up!" The doctor roughly yells from his office. We shut up fast and warn other enlistees with emphatic gestures as they join us in the waiting chairs. In my interview I have no trouble however. I simply answer no to his questions about drugs, and explain about getting KO'd in a sparring match as a teenager. 

The physical examination is the worst part of the whole experience. Four of us enter a wide open room and are instructed by a rude civilian doctor to strip down to our boxers. We are weighed, and our hight is measure to ensure we meet weight requirements. Then we perform a series of awkward exercises to test range of motion. We wave our arms around, walk on our toes and heels, and squat down and do the duck walk. Upon completion we are directed to doors that lead to private doctor's offices. I get an old guy who looks like he's 80. As soon as I walk in his eyes go to my left arm. "Have you ever been treated for excema?" he asks. I have a bad case of poison ivy on my elbow which is in the final stages of healing, and looks pretty bad. I explain what it is and how it happened and he continues the exam. He checks my ears, eyes and throat. Then he tells me to drop my boxers. I suck it up and drop my skivvies to my knees. He places his hand on my waist and has me look right and cough to check for hernia. Then he tells me to turn around and bend over. "Spread your cheeks…" he says, and he looks right up where the sun don't shine to make sure I don't have hemorrhoids. Then he allows me to regain my dignity while he fills out the paperwork in my folder. This is when he delivers the bad news. He wants a dermatologist to say that my poison ivy is indeed poison ivy and not excema. I will not get to swear in and join the delayed enlistment program today. I will have to return to MEPS at a to-be-determined future date for a consultation with a dermatologist, after which I will be able to enlist. I'm disappointed, but at least I know that I've passed the physical in every other way. 

With all the test complete I take my folder of completed paperwork back the Marine Corps liaison office. I again stand on the footprints and knock three times. I wait for several seconds, then hear a voice scream "Come in!" I enter and am accosted for not coming in the first time they spoke. I didn't hear anything. They look over my paperwork and tell me that when they get an appointment date for the consultation with the dermatologist they will call my recruiter. For now my process in on pause and I'm done for the day. They re-package my whole packet with the new paperwork, seal it, and give it back to return to my recruiter for now. Then they send me out and I sit down in the waiting room. There's about 25 people in the room, all of whom are done with their physicals and are waiting their turn to talk to their branch liaisons. I sit near the Marine Corps office and strike up conversation with nearby enlistees, some I've met already, and some I haven't. We have about two and a half hours to wait before lunch. We shoot the breeze and laugh about or experiences with the physical, what MOS we want, what branch we're joining, and how daggonne hungry we are. One Army wannabe has one little spot of excema and has been disqualified until he gets a waiver for it. Our group gains and looses people every so often as they are called to go talk to representatives of their branches. Three of my fellow Marine wannabes come by to go into the Marine Corps office with completed paperwork. Each of them faces the same tirade for not hearing the Marine Staff Sergeants telling them to enter. Three of them are going to swear in, and get more paperwork to fill out in the waiting room. After facing more tongue lashings for each time they knock three times and don't hear the Staff Sergeant, the sharp dressed fellow begins hushing everyone before knocking. He finally succeeds in hearing the first call to enter and we remember to quiet down for them from that point on. By this time I've decided that the Marines are talking quietly the first time on purpose so that they'll have an excuse to chew the recruits out. It's hilarious. 

One of the new Marine recruits talks with me at length about choosing between reserve and active duty. He's been given both options. Reserve will ship him out in a few months, to go Active Duty he will have to wait a year. He's nineteen, living at home, and has no job opportunities. He really wants to get out of his parent's house and the nearer ship out date sounds attractive, but he really wants to go active duty. I advise him to think long term and wait the year for active duty. Reserves might ship him out sooner, but he'll be right back at home after training. 

During the hours we all wait for lunch one of the enlistee's in the waiting room falls asleep, in spite of all the noisy talking the group I'm with is doing. An Air Force captain walking by sees him, and stops right in front of him. The Captain motions another enlistee to wake the guy up. He awakes to the Air Force Captain standing over him. "Are you ok? No you're not because you just woke up to my ugly face. You here to enlist? Can you do that when you're asleep? No? Then sit up and stay awake!" The captain walks away while most of the room struggles to contain laughter. It's really funny, but part of the joke is the Air Force captain trying to be hardcore. 

After what feels like forever they page all enlistees to call us back to the first room downstairs. There we are briefed on where to go for lunch, and again dismissed by branch in reverse order from the first time. The Air Force Base restaurant is a short walk away. By this time we have all met a lot more people and as we drift in at different times the group that we had at the hotel winds up split up. I end up sitting with other enlistee's I've met. We collect our food from a buffet and find it to be really good. I have beef stew, salmon, salad and broccoli. Most of us take so much food we can't finish it all. By the time we finish lunch a slightly enlarged version of my crew from the hotel comes back together. We've added the sharply dressed fellow and a young man Erica met who is also joining the Air Force. We walk back to the MEPS building together chatting merrily.  

(Some of the kids I hung out with at MEPS in front of the building itself as we head to lunch.)

This time most of us chill in the first floor briefing room. A couple of the group goes back upstairs to their liaisons to finish paperwork. The room is full of guys who have finished their process or who, like me, don't get to finish today. Some of the guys play pool, I join a card game. We talk about our day and how it went. Word is going around the room that someone failed the drug test. We all wonder who it is and why, if there was the slightest chance of failing, they would take the test after the speech the doctor gave us at the beginning of the day. That poor guys military dreams are over forever, probably because of some weed he smoked a month ago. Recruiters begin arriving and picking up their recruits to take them home. The room gets pretty loud with conversation and laughter and the Air Force Captain walks in to warn us to quiet down. For awhile everyone complies, but gradually the volume rises again as a pool game that half the room is watching reaches a tense climax, both players vying for the 8 ball. This time the captain walks in mad, really mad. He grabs the pool ball and yells at everyone for disrupting the building by being loud. He says that we are acting like children and will be treated as such. He carries on for a couple minutes. I know I wasn't being loud, but it doesn't matter. Leroy arrives a few minutes later, around 1:15, to take Erica and me home. We go collect our bags, and swipe our magic fingers one last time to sign out. Back in the van and on the road I thank Leroy for the math knowledge quizzing that I feel helped me get such a good score on the ASVAB. He is happy that he was able to help. On the way back Erica crashes to sleep for most of the ride while I write down my experiences on my phone. During the last leg she wakes up and we talk about MEPS. She has qualified for five jobs that she wants, and has sworn in, but still has to hammer the details of her MOS and ship date out with her recruiter. She expresses her sympathy for me not getting to finish the process. Finally around 4:30 we arrive at the recruiting offices in Pensacola and I say goodbye to Erica and Leroy. It has been a full couple days. It has been a great experience with much fun, and some suck too. For me it was great; I got to meet a whole bunch of people of similar interests, talk, chat, tell jokes, and generally have a good time. That pretty much makes up for any boring or awkward parts. This experience just makes me look forward to the military that much more. The only disappointment was not getting to enlist this time round because of my stupid poison ivy, so I'll have to make this trip again sometime soon. Next time it may not be as much fun since I've done it once and the friends I made won't be there. But it'll still be ok, I'm going to join the Marine Corps.