MEPS: Medical Entrance

“Integrity First.

Service Before Self.

Excellence In All We Do,”

            -Core Values of the United States Air Force

As the first of my alarms began blaring I proceeded to roll out of bed and groan with the misery I already felt washed over me. You know what I’m talking about, that feeling when you wake up and immediately feel like you haven’t slept at all. All because of my roommate, who somehow had managed to turn off the television and eventually pass out.

I opened my hotel room door and dragged myself through the hallway proceeding to provide courtesy wakeup calls for the other candidates in the hotel. After making my rounds I found myself back in my room, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, and packing my bag. It felt as if someone was doing it for me and I was just being moved from one place to the next. I was in zombie mode. A feeling I know I will become more acquainted with in the near future.

The other candidates and myself found our selves in the dining room of the hotel loading up on a breakfast buffet. The food was good. By good I mean shit. But I was grateful to have something in my stomach. After all, free food is good food.

We then finished our breakfast and straggled outside where we proceeded to line up half hazardly in front of the hotel waiting for our bus. A couple of the candidates proceeded to smoke or dip and get their tobacco fix in as they would be indisposed all day. I saw the “other PJ candidate” pull out his cigarette and lighter and just laughed to myself. What a joke.

At this point it was approximately 0450 and we were told that the bus would be arriving at 0500. It did. However, we weren’t allowed on it for some reason. It wasn’t until nearly a half-hour later that we were allowed to board the bus.

At this time I remember what my recruiter told me, “Be sure to get on the front of the bus. People in the front are the first to be selected for their tests while people in the back would have to wait.”

Basically I was told that if you are in the front you could be done with MEPS an entire 3 hours earlier than the last person on the bus. So my roommate and I made sure to be the first on the bus.

Eventually, we were on our way and drove the 10 blocks to the MEPS station where we proceeded to wait.

And then we waited some more.

We were forced to sit on the bus for a solid thirty minutes before we were curtly ordered off the bus by an Army Sergeant. Everyone mentally snapped to attention and filed off the bus where we were ordered to line up single file and prepare to enter the building and go through security. As we exited the bus the “other PJ candidate” continued to walk out of the line naturally formed as we came out of the bus single file and come stand next to me at the front. This caught the Army Sergeant’s attention.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“Aren’t we… about to go in?” replied the “other PJ candidate.”

“I said line up single file get the f!@# back into line, jeez!”

It was all I could do to suppress my laughter. Needless to say I was smirking slightly. After a brief… briefing… we went inside and arrived to the MEPS station. Upon arrival we had to check-in and receive our folder, which would contain all of our medical information gathered that day. Being in the front, I was one of the first to check-in, unfortunately, they said I wasn’t in the system or scheduled to be at MEPS that day by my recruiter. So I was told to fall back into line in the back. So much for first in, first out.

It turns out it was just a mistake something wrong in the system and I was allowed to continue. We then went to the recruiter’s offices of the MEPS center where we dropped our bags in our perspective branches office and then left to begin our medical screening.

Now I could go into detail about each little thing and describe the insignificance of it but, it’s insignificant and droll. So no thanks. They took blood, urine, administered hearing and vision tests, duckwalk checks, body checks, weight checks. Like I said droll. At some point we were allowed to break for lunch and I did so. Then came the fun part, waiting to sit down with a recruiter and go over your qualification options.

For me this part was tedious. Being that I was going for Special Forces slots were not available for me because candidates must successfully pass a PAST test in order to qualify and receive a contract for PJ, CCT, TACP, SOWT, even EOD requires one now. I knew this ahead of time and that I would be required to choose four other careers as back-ups for my contract until I qualified for PJ. So that is what I did here are the four I had decided on prior to arriving at MEPS:

1) Operations Intelligence

2) EOD

3) Aerospace Medical Service

4) Fire Protection

Like I said though EOD required a PAST and somehow I didn’t qualify for Fire Protection. I don’t know how or why and when I asked the recruiter he pretended to ignore me and changed the topic. So this threw a wrench in my plans because I had my set four yet at the same time I didn’t really care I’m not going to do any of this in the Air Force. But I was made to choose four and this is what I came up with:

1) Operations Intelligence
2) Tactical Aircraft Maintenance (Don’t know why I chose this, it just was something to choose).
3) Engineering
4) Aerospace Medical Service

How I can qualify for Engineering and not Fire Protection I don’t know but whatever. After this meeting with my recruiter I was sentenced to another long waiting period before I electronically signed my contracts via fingerprints and was sworn in. But within another three hours I was out of there and called my recruiter to pick me up. I walked out of MEPS grateful to see the sun and curious as to why any service member would want to work at one, it seems like agony.

I must say the best part of the day however was when I arrived back at my recruiter’s office and he handed me an Air Force t-shirt and shook my hand it felt great. I love that t-shirt, I kind of wish I had asked him for another, lol!

All that was left for me now was to take and crush my PAST test, which is exactly what I did. But I’ll get into that next time.