MEPS

So finally, after all this waiting, some progress.

I woke up this morning in what I remember was once a rather nice Double Tree hotel in Portland (it's now called something else... a "Clarion" which I believe might be a word from the Latin root "Clarito" which roughly translates into "low thread count sheets.") sharing a room with an 18 year old behemoth prone to tantrums.

MEPS, or the Military Entrance Processing Station, is to the military as is the TSA is to your upcoming holiday travel plans: before you can get to where you want to go, someone needs to grope you.

But in all seriousness, it's just another hoop one has to jump through. If you're not familiar with how the military (as a whole) processes its people, the day at MEPS works like this:

The night before you get put up in a hotel near the processing station (usually an office in a downtown area... mine is over a CVS on Congress St in Portland, ME) as so you're ready to go early in the morning for this whole shin-dig to start. At the hotel there's not a whole lot to do other than sit around and watch tv and talk on your cell phone. Knowing this, I brought with me the current issue of "Runner's World" magazine, my iPad and comfy warm up pants. Leaching off of the hotel's free wifi, I was able to watch a few episodes of whatever I happened to have saved to my Netflix queue via my iPad.

Sometimes you split the room with another ... MEP-ee? I guess? I was fortunate enough that the first two times I went to MEPS, I had a room to myself. I found this phenomenal considering the bulk of people I would find going thru MEPS the next day. This time around, I wasn't so lucky.

After arriving around 630, I had the room to myself. I kicked back, changed into comfy clothes, tore apart the bed and took a shit with the bathroom door open, like a man does when he's staying in a hotel room alone for a night. I told myself not to get my hopes up on having the room to myself, and I gave myself until 8pm as a deadline to be prepared for anything or anyone showing up.

At 8 on the dot, I hear my door click open. Damnit.

In walks this hulk of a boy, throwing his shit down on his bed, bitching to me (at least I think it was to me) about how long it took to take his ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery... a fancy bunch of words that equate to "what jobs you're qualified for in the military" test). He then realizes he's not alone, as I'm looking up at him from over the top of my iPad.

"Oh hey, I'm ____" he says. I don't remember his name. It was rather pedestrian, I recall. "Tim" or something.

I stand up off the bed and shake his hand. "Jack," I say. He had a good grip and looked me square in the eye. Not many 18 year olds do that anymore. Also, get off my lawn.

He leaves shortly there after to find food, after missing the complimentary chow downstairs (if I recall, you get the choice between a burger and fries or a plate of pasta and bread... I opted to stop at a Wendy's for a less-than-satisfying grilled chicken sandwich and baked potato). I go back to watching tv shows and the Bruins game on NESN at the same time. A few hours later, we call it a night.

The next morning's wake up was at 445, but I missed it because I was in the shower, because I was up at 430. I didn't sleep much, because Tim snores and the sheets I was laying on were akin to burlap. I put on a fresh shave, brushed my fangs and we rolled out together to get some hot breakfast that's provided to the guys going into MEPS that morning.

The spread's not bad. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, fruit salad, cottage cheese, coffee, tea, juices, water ... and it's good. It's not soggy, like some "hot breakfast buffets" you'll encounter in the world. What the best part was, I got to actually ENJOY breakfast this morning. The last time I went thru MEPS, I was incredibly close to being "overweight" at 196 lbs. I didn't dare eat anything, as I had been on a "water diet" the weekend before heading in that time around. This time, I weighed in at a trim 167lbs, on a full stomach (21 lbs under my Max Allowable).

Yeah, I had two plate-loads of food.

From there, we pile onto a cold-as-hell school bus and head downtown five minutes away to the MEPS office. This morning there was only five of us MEP-ing, which was shocking by itself. I ate breakfast with my roommate, and two other 18 year olds, fresh out of high school, going into the Marines. One of which maybe weighed 120 lbs with a full kit.

"Do you guys know what you want to do in the Marines?" I ask over breakfast. The first of the two (not the flyweight) answers with that confidence one only can appreciate from someone who's just gotten out of high school.

"I just want to be a trigger-puller," he says. I nod, then glance at his friend.

"And you?"

He nods, a little bashful, mouth stuffed with pancake and homefries at the same time - he's probably still enjoying his childhood metabolism - "me too," he muffles.

I'm then subjected to a round table of questions on what they can expect from MEPS, as it's discovered that this isn't my first time thru. I tell them what I know, and what to expect. I say that because there's so few of us, we're probably going to shoot right thru.

"I was told to expect to be there all day," one says.

"You can expect that, since we're dealing mostly with civilian contractors," I explain. "But it should be pretty painless and quick. When I went thru, there were at least 30 guys just in my group alone...."

So back to the bus.... it's freezing out... according to the clock on the bank we pass by it's 9 degrees out. Right before we got on the bus, I passed the fifth member of our group who instead of breakfast opted for the last-ditch cigarette. He's dumpy, oddly shaped. I go to pass judgment, but then remind myself that, aside from the cig, that's probably a lot like what I looked like on my first go.

I bite my tongue.

When we arrive, there's a young man in street clothes holding the door for us into the building, thanking us for our service. It's unclear if he's actually affiliated with MEPS or if he's just a local and especially patriotic drug dealer. We walk down a hallway and I come face to face with something I wasn't expecting at all:

There's a huge crowd of uniformed service members staring back at we five. Granted, there's usually a recruiter or two hanging out to make sure their recruit makes it to MEPS that morning, but not two dozen.

I dusted off my Parade Rest and came to a halt in front of the contractor with his hands full of paperwork.

We're given instructions at this point about how to conduct ourselves while in the MEPS center (no chewing gum, no loud swearing, no putting feet on furniture, no diddling cell phones - I would get caught doing this, leading to an awkward confrontation between me and a civilian, more on that later), our bags are searched for weps and contraband. We're ... rather.... they're given nametags with serial numbers and branches of service printed on them, and we're led up a few flights of stairs, with this mob of service members behind us.

We're given a brief tour and sent to our respective branch of service offices to pick up paperwork. Because I'm prior service and essentially "walking on" to this processing, I get my name tag here. I'll be referred to as the 'walk on' for the rest of the morning.

By now it's about 630 and we've reconvened for a briefing in a little classroom. Death By Powerpoint ensues, which is just one big scary campfire tale about the dangers of FRAUDULENT ENLISTMENT. Essentially, if you lie on your paperwork (for instance, mark down "I've never done drugs" and pop pos for pot or whatever....) you can get nailed for fraudulent enlistment and possibly go to prison for two years, plus other zany things, like docked pay, etc. All this is presented to us by a rather handsome Army captain.

We then fill out oodles of paperwork, all set to a tedius "please follow along" pace. I mark down everything I'm supposed to and we're all whisked away to various parts of the medical lab, for vision, hearing, urinalysis and blood tests. Once that's done, we have a little sit down with a doctor who just talks to you about every day shit. It's a thinly veiled psych exam. As long as you don't come across as... I dunno, exceedingly nervous, crazy... you're sent on your way.

Now comes the part everyone's heard of and only half believe. All the men are brought into a little room in the back and told to get "buck naked."

Just kidding, we keep our skivs on.

We're weighed and measured and then asked to do a series of silly movements to test our range of motion and to check for any abnormalities, particularly in our feet and spine. If I was worried about any stage of this whole circus, it was this. My left knee has been bothering me as of late (likely from the marathon), and I was worried that I'd be forced to move it in a way to give away that fact. Nothing like that happened, and all went well.

Next, the same doctor we sat with earlier takes us out back to a room separately. Here's the physical aspect of MEPS. Tattoos and scars are documented, groins are grabbed and squeezed, abs are pushed on and buttholes are looked at.

... If you at all believe in the whole Buddhist teaching of Karma... how terrible/great was your last life, where you spend mostly all of this one looking up young men's asses? .... depending on who you are, you know?

I place that part of the exam with just a little more indignity than being forced to take off my belt and shoes before shuffling thru a metal detector at the airport.

Afterwards you dress, sign a few documents and you're on your way. We wrapped by 830... the doctor looking up my butt said that this was a new record.

Oh, all those service members I was talking about earlier? They're all training to be recruiters. I should've mentioned that. That's why they were all standing around and watching us. That was a bit unsettling.

Also, what else is new is that MEPS is using biometrics to track everything now. Not just fingerprints either... retinal scans, facial recognition software, the whole bit. Every station I went to I had to stand in front of a camera and put my index finger on a little pad. At one point, I had to do it just to cross the hall from one exam room to another.

"This is bluddy ridiculous," I wanted to tell the kindly, motherly contractor on the opposite side of the camera, checking to make sure I was 100% meat popsicle. But I held back, after being scolded by a fat prick about being on my cell phone.

....they were very unclear about that... the cell phone thing. One person told us we could use them where ever we wanted, as long as we weren't talking on them (there was a designated area to talk on phones, which was called "outside" apparently) and other instructions received said we could only use cell phones in the designated area (see last side note). So when I was confronted about updating my Twitter feed... I thought the contractor was asking for my phone... as if to confiscate it... which I wasn't about to let him do.... but he kept motioning for something I was holding, but wasn't saying words... so... I kept reluctantly trying to give him my phone.... but he wouldn't take it... eventually he got the words "medical record" out of his fat face, and I understood that he wanted to hold my medrec while I went back to my bag to put my phone away. Gotcha.

So from here, according to my recruiter Sgt. Steve, I should be "good to go" for the next board, which they're projecting to be in January.

More details to follow, I'm sure. When, I don't know.