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MEPS Experience

So after you get all of your information into your recruiter they schedule you a spot at MEPS, which stands for Military Entrance Processing Station. MEPS is basically a physical on steroids. They do a hearing and vision test, urine and blood tests and a physical just to make sure that you are up to military’s standards to join. Everyone goes through the same thing but I’m still going to write about my experience. On 05/07/2017 I went to my recruiters office at 10 am with the other recruits who were scheduled to go up to MEPS. When we got to the office they basically briefed us over what was going to happen so that we would be prepared. Then around 11 am the bus came around and we all hopped in and headed to Atlanta. We went to a hotel first and I found out that we weren’t going to MEPS until the next day. Another thing is that you’ll be at MEPS with all of the other branches not just yours. So at the hotel there were about 30 of us. There were Army, Marine, Air Force and Guard recruits there. We were all gathered in a room where the guy in charge of the program made us watch a video about MEPS and told us a few rules we had to abide by, which were to not disrupt other guests, if we leave the hotel sign out and sign back in, and lights out at 11 pm. At this point it was around 3 pm so they dismissed us and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. Me being the antisocial girl I am, I just went to my room and took a nap until dinner. I had a roommate who was cool. She kind of got off on the wrong foot with a lot of the other recruits but she was alright with me. At dinner I made sure I ate EVERYTHING on my plate. I ate as much as I could and I drank so much water because I was worried about the my weight. I’m 5′4″ and I weigh about 103 lbs and I know I’m underweight for my height so I was scared that I was going to fail that part of the physical so I’ve been eating anything I could get my hands on. After dinner we had another briefing and was released again for the night around 8 pm. I went back up to my room and showered and went to sleep since we were getting a wake up call at 4 am. Since I fell asleep so early I actually woke up on my own at like 3 am and I couldn’t sleep so I was awake an hour before we actually had to get up. Breakfast was at 4:30 so I stuffed my face once again and I had 2 bottles of water just in case I would have to rely on water weight to help me pass. Before we got on the bus we actually had to wait for 2 guys who missed their wake up call and missed breakfast to come down. Poor guys only had a piece of toast and were barely dressed when they came down. After everyone was there we got on these really nice buses to go to Ft. Gillem to start our very long day. When we got there we stood outside and were separated into two lines. One for the physical and testing and the other for people who were shipping off and swearing in. I had already taken my ASVAB (I got a 75) so all I had to do was the physical and swear in. We had all of our stuff from the hotel so we had to go through a metal detector and lock everything up including our phones. If you haven’t heard what MEPS is like it’s basically a lot of sitting and waiting, so since we had nothing on us but our ID and social when we weren’t busy we had the joy of sitting around and staring at a wall. We went to our branch offices and got our files to start our physicals. I did my hearing and vision test first and passed those. Then we did a urine test to make sure no one was pregnant and had no STDs. Next was the actual physical so I just started chugging water any chance I got. The first part was like the scoliosis test we did in middle school when we had to wear a regular bra and granny panties and the doctor checked us for anything that wasn’t normal. Then ladies had a little mini pap smear and breast exam to make sure things were good and then there was a group of about 4 of us in a room watching a video on these exercises we had to do. We went into a room in our bra and panties with the doctor to do the exercises. The point of it was to make sure our joints and everything moved the way they were supposed to with no pain or resistance. The funniest part of MEPS that I will never forget is when we had to walk on our toes across the room and one girl was having a hard time and somehow was walking on the sides of her feet. The doctor, who was such a jerk, made her redo it a few times and eventually told her that she just straight up had bad feet and that she needed to get a pedicure and come back. Oh and the duck walk was a piece of cake (you’ll hear about it). After that was height and weight. Even with all the water I drank I was still 3 lbs underweight BUT my BMI was good so I ended up passing! After all of the physical was over we ate lunch and went back to the waiting room to have an “interview” about our jobs and then we waited around to be able to swear in. Thankfully everything went well and I was able to swear in and was officially put in DEP which is the Delayed Entry Program. After I swore in we had to wait for everyone we came from our city with to finish. Around 5:30 pm we were finally able to go home! 

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Active Army

Why the Army? Well when I started to think about what the heck I was going to do with my life, since I didn’t want to go to school, I naturally was drawn to the military. During high school I did a few years of Army JROTC so I went to talk to an Army recruiter first and then I talked to an Air Force recruiter to learn about the other branches. I couldn’t see myself being in the Marines or Navy so I didn’t even waste their time. So with my choices being the Army and Air Force I ended up choosing the Army because I had more experiences with it and I had a few people in my life who served in the Army. Overall I decided to join the Army for stability. I wanted a job that would always be there.

When I first told my family they were trying to talk me out of it because of the risks obviously, but if I really want to do something I’m going to do it. And I’m supporting myself so at the end of the day I’m going to do what I think is best for me. There are a few reasons why I chose Active Army and not the Reserves or the Guard. The main reason was that I wanted all of the benefits and travel. It was also a plus that I could go to school in the future if I wanted to. 

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About Me

I was born and raised in Columbus, GA. We never did anything super memorable during my childhood so I don’t have much to say about it. For 11 years I was an only child and then my best friend in the whole entire world was born. Growing up was actually pretty average. We didn’t go on trips or anything so I spent 98% of my life in my hometown. I went to the #1 school in the state but even so I just did enough to pass. I wasn’t involved in any sports or after school activities either. I went to school, work, and then I went home and repeated the same thing the next day. Even though I didn’t get out often and kept to myself mostly I did have a few really good friends in school that made it a little less miserable. I actually still talk to a couple of them on a daily basis. I wouldn’t say family is really big for me nowadays because I’ve never really had a strong relationship with my mother and in the past 5 years I haven’t really connected with anyone outside of my immediate family. But the few family members and friends that I still talk to mean the world to me. 

After I graduated high school I decided that I would work for a year and then try the whole college thing since I didn’t have a desire to at that moment. After being at Chick-fil-A for about 2 years my mother moved to another city so I had to get another job and move out and support myself basically. After a few months of working 2 jobs and being on my own I realized that I didn’t want to go back to school but I also didn’t want to be working at a restaurant for the rest of my life either. So I decided to seriously look into the military as a career.