Screening and MEPS

I had the fortune of meeting a really nice recruiter. He had a lot of knowledge of the Army stuff. He explained everything, the good and the bad. I was really worried that I was going to meet one of those deceitful recruiters that hide all the bad stuff. The only downside was that he was relatively new to the job and had no experience with Officer Candidate School (OCS) candidates. Thankfully, he was smart and diligent enough to figure it all out on his own as I later found out.

After scheduling an appointment, I went to the recruitment office. We had this long conversation that lasted about half an hour as he described the Army and questioned why I wanted to join. After I reassured him that I really wanted to join, he let me take the practice ASVAB test. The test had about 10-15 questions and I got a high 90 on it. I'm not sure if I missed any questions but that was the result. My recruiter was impressed and I had to sign a whole bunch of stuff pertaining to my medical information and information release forms. I read everything because I bought into the media's portrayal of the recruiters as deceitful people. The first wave of paperwork mainly consisted of my health information (have you had a heart attack, do you wear glasses, etc) and the agreement that the military can access my medical information. After taking care of the paperwork, my recruiter said he will call me after scheduling an appointment with the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS).

Let me just say that MEPS is not fun. It is 90% waiting and 10% getting yelled yet. The procedure and schedule is different depending on which MEPS you go to. In Ft. Meade, we take the ASVAB during the evening, get sent to a motel, sleep overnight, return back to Ft. Meade, get your physical, and leave sometime during the afternoon. So basically, you need to reserve a whole day for MEPS and you spend about 90% of the day waiting. What's worse is that you're not allowed to have electronic devices, so you can't bring your cell phone or Game Boy. Also, be sure to not wear a white T-shirt and be sure to wear appropriate undergarments. You will be wearing your underpants in front of others, so don't come without undergarments or with thongs, etc.

After I got dropped off at MEPS, I left my cell phone in my backpack and signed in. They had to create an account with my photo and my fingerprint. The fingerprint recognition device can get really annoying and sometimes you have to keep twisting your finger and reposition your finger so that it recognizes the print.

The ASVAB is done on the computer. Basically, you have 4 or 5 buttons on the computer and you push a button corresponding to the right choice. I got a 99 (AFQT) on it and I took that test while not getting any sleep the past two days and while falling asleep in the middle of the problems. The questions were mainly composed of 9th-10th grade high school material (Algebra, Biology) Some of the questions try to trick you, so be sure to double check your answers. For the OCS candidates, the score doesn't really matter too much. You either pass or you don't. You need a 110 GT, which is about 70 AFQT. After 110, you should be eligible for all MOS's so it doesn't matter if you got 110 GT (~70) or 150 GT (99). You might want to get a high score if you want to brag about it. But then again, bragging about such trivialities makes you a small person (unless you do it on a blog). I have seen other OCS candidates brag about how they got a 95 or a 98, but it doesn't mean crap. I got a 99 and I still feel dumb sometimes. Give me two or three days and I can get anyone to ace the ASVAB.

After you take the ASVAB, they call everyone who needs to go to the hotel to get in line. They load you in a bus and take you to a hotel. From there, they feed you dinner, assign you a roommate and a room. The food was decent but the lady who serves the food can really make you lose your appetite. They have a rec room and a gym, but I decided to just go to bed after dinner since I didn't get any sleep the night before. I chatted with my roommate for a few hours before I fell asleep. We needed to get up at around 4:30 AM or so. From there, you eat breakfast and prepare to go to MEPS for the physical (or to get shipped out). Honestly, I don't know why they do all this. It seems pretty redundant and costly.

Apparently, the medical people are from a separate from the MEPS people. I'm not sure about the details and forgive me if this isn't accurate, but I remember overhearing that the medical staff work for the Department of Defense and are not exactly part of the military. I try my best to forget what happened there. I played StarCraft when I was young and one of the lines the medic (a unit in StarCraft) uses is "turn your head and cough." I NEVER understood what that meant until my first day in MEPS. I also remember that the staff are EXTREMELY rude. I HOPE they're trying to simply test you to see if you're emotional or excessively sentimental. However, sometimes I get the impression that they just want to act tough. Sometimes, they will give you an unclear command and yell at you for not listening. It might be because some of the staff have poor English or it might be to simply get on your nerves. From what I remember, the physical includes...
hearing test, vision test (sight and color blindness), urine test, blood test,
they check your heart, make you strip naked and turn your head and cough, check your rectum for hemorrhoids. In addition, they make you do basic physical activities to check your balance and make sure there are no irregularities in your joints and mouth. Be sure you do not have gang-related tattoos or you will fail! If something is wrong, don't give up hope because you might be able to get a waiver for it. For example, if you're color blind, depending on how color blind you are, you might be able to get in anyways. Unfortunately, if you need a waiver, it means you have to spend another day getting that waiver.

They will serve free lunch at around 12:00 PM but if you do not finish all your tests, you may have to skip lunch or have a late lunch. Once you're done, you have to call your recruiter to get picked up and you should be home by the evening so that you can drown yourself in alcohol so that you can forget what has happened that day.