1 The Beginning

Date 20100617

Location Parker, CO, USA

Jason's Home

Jason lived in Parker, a town just outside of Denver. At this time he was two months before turning eighteen years old. He woke up at 0600 hours and went for a short mile run before he started to do paperwork. That paperwork was the personal information paperwork needing his address, references, education and previous work. He then left to go to the Marine recruiting station in Parker. At 1000 hrs he entered the building and gave the paperwork to his Staff Sargent, Ssgt Hollingsworth. That day was important because it was the day that he was going to MEPS for the first time, in this case, to take the ASVAB. The ASVAB is the aptitude test to enlist in the military, and scores come in two types; line scores for each branch of the military, and the AFQT scores for comparison for all test takers.

Jason was not worried because he was expected to get a ninety-two based off of his practice test which he had taken at the recruiting office when he first visited. That was not the most perilous point of MEPS. MEPS was designed to provide tests to see if applicants are capable of joining the military, both intellectually and physically. The physical portion is always the hardest because it tests for all drugs and some health problems mostly in the eyes. The physical also asks for medical history. Though if anything turned up for medical history extensive paperwork and subsidiary visits would need to be made to have the slightest chance of not being disqualified. Flexibility is also tested in an event called the underwear olympics which a doctor and observer watch over a group of applicants going through a set of strange exercises to test the body in movement for any pops in the bones or the lack of an ability to move some fingers. There is a reason that the doctors working at MEPS are typically pains to deal with. It is because they are old and looking for retirement, they are paid based on how many people they see. Fifty dollars a head, and it does not matter if they disqualify the applicant in fifty seconds or go through all the applicant's paperwork in fifty minutes to ensure there are no physical preexisting problems.

Jason was told all of this by the recruiters at the station but today he is only scheduled to take his ASVAB. Today it would be easy the ASVAB is a test with a maximum time of four hours. With nine sections, four primary knowledge, and five acquired knowledge tests. The four primaries test word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, mathematics knowledge, and arithmetic reasoning. Jason studied for three hours the day before, he did not particularly care what he got on the test because anything above an eight on the AFQT would qualify him for any job in the marine corps, and he did not even need that to get into infantry, the people commonly referred to as jarheads. Things would not be so easy for Jason.

To get into the MEPS building Jason went with Ssgt. Hollingsworth leading the way. They went through security, at this point in time Jason was directed to remove all metal on his person and to put anything in his pockets into a plastic tray to go through an x-ray machine while he walked through a metal detector. Jason was wearing underwear, a white undershirt, socks casual shoes, khaki pants and a blue polo shirt made out of athletic material. Once through the metal detector, he followed Ssgt. Hollingsworth up the elevator to the second-floor to sign in at the front desk. There Jason received a sticker with his full name, the branch of service he wished to enter and why he was in the building today. He then left to take the ASVAB which was at the end of the hall and waited to take the test at one of the computers in the lab. After about fifteen minutes Jason was called up to take his test. About an hour and forty-five minutes later Jason was finished with the ASVAB but another test showed up afterwards, a personality test and Jason decided to take it because it was only offered to marine applicants, and the goal was to provide information for the general psychological profile for successful marines, with the proctors of the test stating that the test was optional and results would not impact your military career in any way.

When he was finished with all the tests the Proctors told him to go wait outside of the lab his results to return and for them to be printed out. Jason waited for an hour. Jason was then called up again and told to take his documents to the Marine office between the front desk and where he was currently, he passed it on the way to the testing room. Jason took his scores to the room without having a look inside the envelope. Jason knocked on the door until he heard the Marines tell him to come inside, after standing outside the office for five minutes. One of the Marines asked why Jason was here, his name, and to hand over the paperwork. Jason replied respectfully "My Name is Gibbs, I just took the ASVAB and they told me to take this envelope to you. Sir." The Marine looked at the single letter inside the envelope and asked: "what recruiting station are you form Gibbs?" "Rss Parker," Jason replied. "Figures," the Marine disgruntled said and then proceed to ask "do you have a ride to the Hotel tonight?". Jason replied "Ssgt. Hollingsworth told me that Ssgt. Mercado would take me". The Marine then said, "well go wait for him in the waiting area and hand me your sticker now get the hell out of my office." Jason quickly did as he was told

Then Jason texted Ssgt. Hollingsworth to tell him that he finished his test and that he got a ninety-six on the ASVAB AFQT. Then Jason waited until Ssgt Mercado called him and gathered up the remaining marine candidates from MEPS. They left the building and walked into a parking garage across the street where they got into a blue-purple mini-van and the drove three blocks to the marine recruiting headquarters. There, of the five people including Jason himself, two were depped into the delayed entry program. A girl with red hair was also in this group of five, she did not meet the physical requirement for the marines for crunches or pull-ups and she wanted to ship off a year from then. Ssgt Mercado wanted her to dep in today because being in the delayed entry program, for physically fit candidates, mean almost doubling the number of pull-ups and crunches you can do. Ssgt Mercado argued with the Co for a couple minutes saying that with a month he could get her up to the required number much less a year and that she would be a good poolie, and Ssgt Mercado eventually won out. The candidate was supposed to come into the office in the next three days to complete more paperwork that would only take about two hours.

One person stayed at the Marine headquarters because their recruiter was there to take them to another recruiting station, the one that they belonged to. While everyone else left and got into the van for the hour drive to Parker. What made it even better was at this time it was about 1600 hours which was the beginning of rush hour. They eventually made it to the recruiting station at 1723 where Jason went to complete the personal information paperwork which he started that morning. The rest went home. At 1600 Jason looked around and realized that there were two other people going through the same paperwork that he was, and that they were set to go to MEPS with him the next day. The paperwork was not complete but Ssgt. Hollingsworth did not care, he only had to put the information into a database anyway.

The pre-MEPS briefing was pretty long. It started with Ssgt. Hollingsworth handing out paperwork that MEPS used to find out prior medical history. It had several sections, one for males only, one for females only, and Jason had an extensive prior medical history. With problems breathing, bronchitis's, asthma, use of an inhaler, acne, a broken arm, and a requirement to wear glasses. Ssgt. Hollingsworth asked Jason that "you have acne?" and Jason pointed to his face. Ssgt. Hollingsworth continued "for all of those are any severe? I have seen your dedication in workouts for the past three months and know that you want to be a marine. Let's see, so, everyone has acne, what they are asking for this one is if you went to a doctor about your acne. For the broken arm, and breathing problems, are they all related, and how long ago did you have these problems?" Jason said, "I did not see a doctor for the acne, for the broken arm it was a hairline fracture eight years ago, and for the breathing problems those were in the past where when I move up to Colorado and only lasted for less than a year." Ssgt. Hollingsworth replied, "If they were not severe, they did not happen so coming tomorrow what will you mark on your paperwork?" Jason said, "That I have glasses and that I am in good health." Which Ssgt. Hollingsworth approved of and then told Jason that "From now until the moment you leave MEPS tomorrow everyone is your enemy and trying to disqualify you from joining the delayed entry program. Remember that whenever you talk to anyone, and tomorrow they test for elevated sugar and protein levels in your urine, so for breakfast eat some eggs and a piece of fruit, don't drink orange juice." Then he asked "have you eaten dinner yet, no then have a snack pack" of which he sorted through and handed Jason a honey oatmeal bar, a bag of almonds, and a container of applesauce with no sugar. Jason ate everything except the apple juice which he threw away.

Then Jason started the pre-MEPS interview with Ssgt. Mercado who asked about his medical information and Jason replied with the prepared responses. After the initial questions, Ssgt. Mercado told Jason "you need to get at least three pull-ups, as for crunches you are good, remember if they ask you to do pushups, you need to do forty-two." Then he asked "how many pull-ups are you going to do?" and Jason replied, "five sir" which Ssgt. Mercado liked, and said, "when you get to MEPS all you answer is yes sir and no sir, or yes ma'am, and no ma'am MEPS is always grouchy you need to be careful what you say never explain that is where they get you." Jason looked like he understood so Ssgt. Mercado sent him out of the office to wit for the other two to complete their interviews.

When the other two were done, another recruiter took all of them to the hotel which was three blocks from MEPS. They got to the hotel just before 2200 and needed to wake up at 0430 the next day. They passed the front desk and went to the second floor and signed in with civilians operating a pseudo front desk exclusively for military personnel. Where the Jason and the other two were given lunch bags with food, room keys and told that phone calls would come in and 0430 and 0445 to wake them up and that the vans left at 0545 the next morning and if they did not get on them they would not go to MEPS, with breakfast starting and 0445 and latest entry at 0500. Jason left the lounge and went to his room where he ignored his dinner and fell asleep.