Brain Games

When that day finally came for me to head off to the MEPS for my physical I was scared shit less. Not afraid to join, but afraid something would happen that would keep me from joining. I had put so much time and effort and energy and sweat into this one moment and I was desperately afraid something would happen, or they would find something that was gonna fuck it all up for me.

It was about a 3 hour bus ride from Florence, Al to Nashville, TN where the MEPS station was located. The MEPS (Military Enlistment Processing Station or something close to that) is used by all branches of the military. They put you up in a hotel and then you all ride over to the MEPS and get your physicals, pick out your jobs, sign on the dotted line and get sworn in. When we arrived at the hotel, we all had room mates. Most of the folks there, all at least 10 years my younger since I was 26 at the time, thought it was an awesome time to have a drunken party. I having been off at college for the last 2 years thought it was time to just wait it out till 5 am and try not to gain any weight before I got on the scale. My roomie, a girl who's name escapes me also stayed in the room, we talked a little, about what I can't remember, watched some tv and then turned in for the night.

I got up the next morning and headed to the Shoney's next door where breakfast was being provided. I was STARVING but only ate a banana cause I didn't know what the scale would say. When we got to the MEPS we did some paperwork and then were called up in groups to do the see the doctors. We got blood drawn, got our hoots examined, got mostly naked and walked like a duck. We got xrays answered alot of questions and got on the scale.....133.5 lbs . The most I could weigh was 135 pounds, woot I made it! I couldn't believe it, I passed! Then the real worry kicked in that now that I had finally made the weight cut that something else would pop up to ruin it for me. They took our blood pressure and checked our heart rates. I was so anxious that my was through the roof. My pulse was a shocking 135 bpm! I told the doctor that I was very anxious and he sent me out to the waiting area to chill out for a half hour. I sat out there and tried to calm myself down. I had my heart rate back down to the 80's even though at home it was in the 60's when they came to get me to recheck it. The second time it was 145, I was freaking out. I told the Doctor "I swear this is just me being anxious, at home it's in the 60's!"
He said this is what we are going to do, I'm going to send you home for 30 days and bring you back and check it again. He asked me if I smoked, I said that I did. He told me to stop smoking and to cut out all caffeine. Are you kidding me, I was living off of coffee and cigarettes!! I told him I would and went home feeling scared and like I had shot myself in the foot for no good reason and was in danger of scaring myself out of my dream.

30 days later I was back in Nashville and ready to take the entire physical over again. I was very nervous and starving. Much to my surprise, when I told them why I was there and what had happened, the ONLY thing they did was take me back to get my pulse checked. Once again, my anxiety rose with fear the same thing would happen to me again and I would blow it for myself. When he checked it, my bpm was 99, the Doctor said that it had to be under 100, so I made it, just barely, but I had made it, I was ecstatic.

I went on to talk about a job. I had decided on some sort of radio operator because it sounded cool and I wouldn't be stuck at a desk all day. I watched a little video and picked 31C (Single Channel Radio Operator) and signed the contract. I would be leaving for basic in April (the earliest available date). Then we were all gathered up and taken into a big room with a podium and some flags and a Major had us all raise our right hands and take the oath.

I had made it happen.

At lunch time they brought out box lunches, it was a really sad looking cheese burger and some chips, it was delicious.

Proof

So this happened yesterday:

Gunman kills 12, leaves 31 wounded at Fort Hood, TX


I didn't even know anything about it until it was all over. When I saw the first article about it, I felt like I had been hit by a ton of bricks. I had the same feeling I got at the beginning of the war. The same feelings I had at the beginning of Desert Storm.


It never leaves you. The name of this blog rings true once again.

This woman is an American Hero:


Female Army vet and now police officer takes the gunman down. She was shot 3 times in the process.


My thoughts and sympathies go out to the victims, my brothers and sisters in uniform. May they R.I.P.

80 lbs, give or take

All the military recruiters shared one giant office in a plaza over by the mall. I drove by there fairly often and would look over at all the posters. The place where I used to get my hair cut was in that same plaza so I used to cruse past like a stalker. I had decided on the Army but had no idea what the weight limit was or anything about joining. One day walked up and looked in the window after my haircut. There were different displays with pamplets for all the different branches just inside the door. So I stepped in and grabed some for the Army and stepped back out without anybody seeing me. I took those things home and read them over and over and over again. At the time I weighed 215 pounds and I knew that as way too much. I didn't dare step inside at that weight and ask. So I decided that once I had gotten down to 165 I would go in and talk to the recruiter. I didn't really know anything about weight loss at the time. The only thing I knew was that a pound of fat = 3600 calories so to lose weight you had to do without 3600 calories. At the same time my mom had purchased some brand new light frozen meals, I flipped one over, 300 calories. So I decided to eat one of those a day and fill out the rest of the day with beverages. Since I was basically starving, I started losing a ton of weight approx. a pound per day. I thought this was a great diet. The fat melted away. It didn't take that long and I was under 170 so I went by the recruiters office and had a chat and got the ball rolling. All I had to do was lose the additional weight. I pretty much lived off of cigarettes, coffee and 300 cal per day. After a while I added exercise to my daily routine. I knew that I would have to run and exercise and I wanted to already be in shape. This also aided my weight loss as I went through periods where nothing happened. I didn't know this at the time, but I was setting myself up to fail, only it seemed to be working like a charm at the time so I started working out twice a day. (the thought of that boggles my mind today) and before the year was out I had my appointment to go get my physical.

Hopes and Dreams

I first started thinking about joining the military when I was a junior in high school. At the time I really wanted to join the Air Force. My dad had been in the Air Force, I had lived my whole life in the USAF and I liked it. But at the time I was very overweight, and had been for most of my life, so joining any branch of the military just seemed like a far away and impossible thing.

After I graduated from high school, I was still way too heavy to join and I didn't really want to get a job and even though I didn't really want to go to college I enrolled at the local junior college and decided to major in biological science, another long time love of mine. School went ok, it was like grade 13 and I made lots of friends, hated studying and doing homework and loved partying and doing all that fun college stuff. But I still had that nagging feeling that stayed just far enough away that I didn't have to address it, but it never left either. To make matters worse, during this same time period both my brothers joined the USMC, a year apart from each other, and I went to both their Basic Training graduations so every time my nag seemed to be tucked nicely away, the scab would get ripped off and I'd remember it again. That combined with all the new and different Marine Corps stuff I had been newly introduced to made the Marines very attractive to me, so..

So I somehow convinced my then roomie that we could both join the Marines and we both started going to visit the recruiter. At first it was highly motivating, but then as time passed, he gave us some terrible advice on dieting and weight loss and even though we both gave it a decent try we soon realized that the Marines were not where we wanted to go.

When we first stepped into his office he seemed very enthused and had us both believing we could shed that weight in no time and would be off on our way. That first time on his scale it read 215lbs. He then told us to starve ourselves and to not eat anything all week, just drink liquids. So that is what we did and what do you know, one week later we had both lost 10 pounds. So we kept it up as long as we could, but anybody can tell that a diet like that can't be maintained and so we ultimately failed. He also went out of his way at the same time to tell us that most Marines don't think that women should even be in the corps and was very negative himself about female Marines, so after a steady diet of that we both decided to give it up and ended up no so motivated, at least for the USMC. But one thing was for sure, he left me with the wrong idea of what you do to lose weight and I paid for that in the long run.

During my 2nd year in college my roommate's mother became gravely ill and died and she dropped out of school and went back home to be with her family. So I was all alone with my nag.
When I went home for my summer break, I was driving over by the mall and there was the recruiting office. It was just around the corner from the place that cut my hair, so one day I just went over and looked through the window. The offices for all the branches were in the same location, so I just stood there and looked at all their combined posters and recruitment paraphernalia. I had already decided that the USMC was out and even though I had warm fuzzy feelings for the USAF I had decided that I wanted to go my own route and do something completely different than what my brothers and father did.


That left me with the Army and the Navy and both seemed equally attractive to me at that moment. So I went home to contemplate. After long and in depth, pros and cons style debate inside my head, I decided that the Navy just wore too much polyester for me and I went with the Army. Not that this was the only reason I joined the Army mind you, but it was one of the deciding factors for me. That and I liked all the soldiering types of things the Army did and the thought of being trapped at work on a boat for 6 months at time with no place to escape did NOT appeal to me, so I went with the US Army. Now all I had to do was lose the weight.

And so it begins...

I come from a military family. That is not to say that my family has been in the military going back to the revolutionary war, but in bits and pieces it has. What I mean by that is that everybody in my family, save my mom, all ended up in the military.

My dad retired from the US Air Force. He joined when he was 17 and he retired after 22 years active duty. Growing up we lived all over the US and occasionally abroad. I have memories of my dad going off to Vietnam, and then again to Thailand. Both my brothers joined the Marine Corps and my sister and myself, well we went Army. My sister's eldest son just graduated from BCT at Ft. Leonard Wood and I went to the graduation and was reminded yet again, that it just doesn't go away. No matter how many years pass on the in between.

This blog is here to be my story. I want to write it all down before it all goes away completely. I want to log every memory I can and along with it all my thoughts and feelings about events and life and the way things play out in the long run.

Bare with me if you can.