I had set my alarm for 0415, so I had time to get myself ready before we were to checkout, and eat breakfast. My roommate and I headed down and checkout and then everyone shuffled to the breakfast buffet.

After eating we all herded onto a small shuttle bus that drove us across the highway, less than half a mile, to MEPS. When we arrived at MEPS, we unloaded from the bus and lined up outside the entrance doors of the MEPS building. Once we entered, we placed our bags on a conveyor belt which ran them through an X-Ray machine.

After we were all ran through the line, we had a short briefing and roll call in the dining hall, and then we began our processing with bio-metric fingerprint scans. After my finger was in the system and my photo was taken, I met with the National Guard liaison who instructed me on where to go. Before long all the recruits were lined up again, and then rushed into a classroom where we filled out our medical questionnaires.

After all that excitement we were split up into several groups and sent to different stations to begin our processing. I was in the urine sample group, which was great, because I had been holding it in all morning for this and was about ready to burst. About six of us, including the technician shuffled into a restroom like cattle and lined up next to the urinals, not in front of them like a normal person. Everybody is facing the same direction, like you’re in a line, with a urinal in between each person. We are then given instructions to urinate into the cup and then finish in the urinal, all while the technician watches to ensure that everyone is giving a valid specimen; in other words, the dude is watching you all take a leak, and seeing everyone’s “business”.

After that I voluntarily gave a blood sample. That I hate doing.

Once the needle poking was finished I did a hearing test, which I assume I had no problems with. Then it was on to the vision test where I was given a 20/20 vision.

All of this was done in less than half an hour. What came next resulted in a lot of waiting. And then more waiting.

I met with a doctor who went over my questionnaire from earlier, and verified the answers with me. We then talked about fishing, and how he had fished in the creek of the town that I grew up in — then he gave me a physical and checked my rectum for hemorrhoids — so… yeah.

After that pleasant exchange was finished we waited some more before going into another room and stripping down to our underwear (about a dozen males). We performed awkward physical motions with our wrists and walked like ducks, and made sure that none of had any limitations joint wise. We spent some more time waiting after that to meet with the doctors who gave us the okay. Then we were finished with the medical portion.

I then met up with the recruiter who drove me up, and the National Guard liaison who instructed me on what to do next. I then had the pleasure of answering more questions about my medical history, and then had to take another test — even though my ASVAB score was high enough. This test was the TAPAS, and is basically only relevant if your ASVAB is low — so the liaison told me to just pick an answer and submit, through all 120 questions, so I did — and it took me about 3 minutes.

I then waited for about an hour, just hanging out watching TV — waiting to be swore in to the military, when I had the pleasure of meeting Sergeant Major Battaglia, who did an unofficial swear in on seven of us recruits and took photos and met everyone before we were actually swore in.

And…

After the sergeant’s swear in, we were official swore in to the United States Armed Forces, and I was officially a member of the Army National Guard. Hooah.