My MEPS experience

Tuesday July 14th I had my physical for the Army National Guard. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I had to arrive at the early hour of 05:45am at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS for my physical. Why so early I do not know. From what other people have told me and the investigating on my own, it is cause in the military there is a lot of "hurry up wait" time. So perhaps arriving this early is so there will be plenty of that.

I arrived a little early thinking the earlier the better so as to get through quicker, well it didnt matter how early someone got there, they didnt open the doors till 06:00am. As I stood outside there were a dozen or so other people waiting to get in. How can this physical possibly take all day with a dozen people? My recruiter told me that I should expect to get out of there around 2pm or so. Well, next thing I know a charter bus pulls in and dumps off about 40-50 more people. Ah, so this is why it takes forever. These are the out of towners who fly in from wherever on Uncle Sams dime. I guess this SLC office is the closest MEPS facility for several states.

Before we head in we had are scanned with a metal detector since it is a federal building. Once inside I head to my liasion office and get my nametag with the last four of my social and a bar code to be scanned like meat at a grocery store. I am one of the first ones at the front desk to scan my finger print to start the processing. I am instructed to have a seat and this is where I think "hurry up and wait" time. Another guy sits down next to me and we start talking. He is from Vegas and looking to join the Air Force. We were probably talking five minutes when our names were called and shuffled into a meeting room. We sat and waited as the medical person found a person from each branch of the military to bring in. He told us that they like to get at least one group of people out of here by 09:30am. Fine by me, I already dont want to be here till 2pm.

In this room we go over our paperwork and fix any errors to our name and fill out questionarres. Lucky me they spelled my last name wrong on everything. They spelled it "Dillworth", not "Dilworth". There is only one "L" in my last name. Is it really that hard to comprehend. So now i have to cross out my last name, initial it, write the date, and then write the correct spelling. Also in this room we have our blood pressure and pulse taken, and also take a breathalizer. My BP was a little elevated, but I blame that on the face I only slept two hours the night before and have been up since 01:30am! After all this is done we proceed to the hearing test.

We are coralled into the hearing room, take our tests, and then recieve a simple eye exam and a test to determine if we can tell the differnce between colors. My vision is 20/20 in both eyes :-) Once that is done I have a quick visit with one of the doctors to go over some of my injuries I have had in the past. I had to record the time I cracked my wrist playing baseball when I was 10 or 12. I also had to document the time I had stitches in my lip due to a flashlight smashing me in the mouth. I also have seasonal alergies and a birthmark on my left calf, which is approx 1"x.5". They are pretty thourough.

Now that is done comes blood work. They draw my blood, no biggie, I am ok with needles. I have donated plasma plenty of times so needles are pretty much my friends. After blood comes the urine test. It is a observed urine test, which means someone has to watch me take it to make sure I dont cheat. They allow three of us at a time in the bathroom each with our own urinal. We are to fill the cup half way up, finish our business, step back with the cup in hand and dont ever turn our backs to the witness, otherwise we have to throw out that urine. One guy had stage fright, so he had to come back later, lol. Well my urine failed for too much protein, which means I have to come back sometime after 48 hours to tinkle again. Too much protein?? WTF??

Now comes the fun part. We are sent to a private room, about nine of us in all for the funky walking tests and then the bung hole and private area check. Once we are in there we are required to strip down to our undies, height and weight checked, ears checked (which I have deep wax in my ears apparently), and do several flexibility and balance manuvers. It was somewhat weird, a bunch of half naked guys squatting, walking while squatting, rotating arms, kicking legs, etc etc. After that we go into a seperate room one by one and checked for hernia and spread our butt cheeks. I am guessing on the butt cheek spread the doc is looking for hemroids. Thats the only think I can think of. Either way I am glad it is over.

I dress and head out. I have a different doc review all my paperwork and he makes sure I get my ears cleaned. If it wasn't for this, I would of been out by 10:00am. But nope, I have this stuff squirted in my ears and have to wait like 20 minutes. Since I am waiting I go to lunch, which was at 10:00am. I head back to the medical area and this chick is assigned to me to clean my ears. By this time it is probably 10:20ish. Well this device they use to clean your ears is jammed in your ear hole and sprays water while sucking at the same time. I am told I will feel dizzy during this as well. Sure enough once it starts the room starts spinning, kind of a weird feeling but it passes after several moments. Well this went on for probably about 15 minutes, in my one ear. I guess I had a lot of wax in there or perhaps this chick was a numbskull, I am going with the later. She was not gentle thats for sure. She was cramming things in and out of my ear, I was on the verge of saying "screw it" to the whole thing because of this wench. Anyways, my right ear is done, on to the left. Towards the end of this ear I really started feeling woozy which was causing me to feel sick also. LAter I find out only warm water should be used, this broad was using cold!! And cold water causes wooziness and sickness!! What a stupid girl, I could of slapped her stupid. After sitting still for about five minutes I am finally able to process out. Sure I have to come back but at least I am out of there. The rest of the kids there are probably good till 2pm or longer, suckers!!

I think I was one of the oldest guys there. Everyone single one of these kids were right out of high school or around the very early age of 20. One guy I met was 30, so I still had him beat by one year. All in all though there wasn't a whole lot of waiting for me. It was nice being in the expedited group. I am told I will have go through this physical again when I ship out to basic, awesome. That first week at basic will be a lot of hurry up and wait. Can't wait.

MEPS

On Monday the 13th of July I go in for my physical for the Army National Guard, can't wait. Actually, it will probably be good for me to get a physical. Whether it is from the government or a private doc, either way I will know if there is anything wrong with me. Right now I weight about 193ish. As far as I know the max weight for my height is 189. I doubt that will deter me from eligibility, either way I have started running. Its funny how all it takes is a little run to make you realize how out of shape you are. Anyways, I am hovering around 193 so we will see what happens. I still have a few more days to run and hopefully drop at least two pounds or so. I am going to write about my experience there as much as possible and then copy over to my blog. I read some guys blog about his experience with MEPS and Basic, it was pretty neat. He wrote as often as he could and mailed the letters home and had someone copy over to his blog. I like that idea and think I will give it a try. Anyways, Monday should be tons'o'fun