Being a Soldier is one hell of a ride!

Being a Soldier is one hell of a ride.  I personally have experienced the extreme highs, lows, the very frequent in-between moments, and the overwhelming amount of time spent waiting for something but you are not sure what.  Of course, every ride needs to start somewhere, so let’s take you back to when that ride started for me.  Now, most people would say it was the day basic training started, or they graduated from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and became real Soldiers.  But, my ride started the day before I went back to MEPS and shipped out to basic training.  It all started in my bedroom with my left foot.   Weird, I know.

So how did this start with my left foot; no, this is not some corny quip about “when your left foot hits the ground” cadence; to be frank, I had a massive splinter in my left heel the day before I was scheduled to leave.  Growing up in the country, splinters were frequent and nothing we ever worried about.  You just removed it with a tweezer or cut it out carefully when you got a splinter.  Too easy I have done this a thousand times.  Well, this one was not too easy.  This splinter was in the meaty portion of my left heel, directly where I placed my weight when I walked or ran.  Worst spot ever.  So, I did what any country kid about to go into the Army and start his new life would do.  I got my pocket knife and tried to gently cut away some of the skin so I could pull the splinter out.  It was buried deep after all

Big mistake.

I slipped a bit while sitting Indian style poking at my heel with a pocket knife in my room.  I slipped so bad I cut about a three-inch-long gash in the meaty portion of my heel, so deep the cut was bleeding like a faucet left on a low trickle.  It was a good cut; it could have fileted a northern pike with that cut.  Anyway, I limped to the bathroom and grabbed some toilet paper to stop the bleeding, which did not stop the bleeding.  I just kept bleeding and bleeding.  Finally, I started to panic, thinking I would not be able to go to basic training anymore and my contract would be void, and the government would find me in contempt of breaking my contract or something.

  (For the record, the government would not have cared.  They would have sent me to training anyway)

I panicked more when I used half a roll of toilet paper, trying to stop the bleeding.  Quick teenage boy thinking activated, and I grabbed the superglue and glued my cut shut!   I used probably a third of the bottle, too, just a bit too much.  When it started to dry, I put three Band-Aids across the cut to keep it in place.  It ended up working, and my bleeding stopped.  That left me with a bit of a limp to conceal while walking, but I was no longer bleeding.  This is how I started my time in the Army with an injury.  That is prophetic, seeing as all the injuries I sustained while serving.  My parents never knew this happened.  I never told anyone this except my wife.  And now the world, I guess. 

The following day, I woke up early, all set to go to basic training.  I had packed my bags the night before and had a good time with my mom and dad.  As I walked out the door, I carefully measured how my foot could hold weight with its new superglue base.  It was a little better than the day prior but still nowhere near ready to go.  We all piled into my dad’s truck and started driving to meet the recruiter at the Lansing MEPS station.  This was the day I would start my new and exciting life as a professionally trained Military Police Officer!  I was going to help people and be part of one of the most amazing organizations in the world.  I was floating on cloud nine on the way to Lansing, and my parent was not.  I was on an emotional roller coaster, too; I was trying to hide it from them.  I remember vividly that we stopped at my brother’s apartment near Western Michigan University.  This apartment was a somewhat run-down, dilapidated place named “the Crow’s Nest.”  I have some good memories of visiting my brother and his friends there while partying the weekend away, learning what college was about (or so I thought).  The entire building seemed like that was expected at college; there was almost always some group of college kids drinking or playing loud music.  My parents and I ended up meeting him in the parking lot of his building.  I am not sure why we met there.  Maybe he was about to go somewhere, or maybe he had classes to go to, or maybe he did not want to say this goodbye in front of his friends. 

We all spoke for a few minutes there in the parking lot.  The time went by quickly for me as I was excited and nervous and didn’t particularly appreciate saying goodbye.  I remember the last thing my brother said to me after giving me a firm hug slap on the back.  My brother said, “Don’t take no shit from anyone!”  He released his grip on me and walked back to his apartment, wiping the tears away from his face.   Damn pollen and onion chopping ninjas.  Then, his advice was the best and most helpful advice I have ever gotten from him.  I believe that I have applied it in so many situations, and it still will, even though I retired a bit ago.  My parents and I then shuffled back into the truck and finished driving to Lansing to meet my recruiter.  That last hour in the truck was a long and quiet drive.  I guess that no one knew what to say as we had already said everything to each other.  When we met up with the recruiter at a costly hotel in Lansing; ok, it was a ramada inn and probably about $40 a night back then.  I was happy the lobby did not have any bullet holes or visible mold and rot. 

In the lobby were about 20 other recruits waiting, watching their parents drive away like me.  Some were crying, and some were happy and excited.  A vast majority of us were nervous, though, and asked the other recruits what they would do in the Army and what kind of bonus they got.   That was the first time I realized I got screwed out of a bonus.  I talked to a kid named Jason who had signed up to be an MP for three years with a $15000 bonus and Airborne school.  I was floored; I received no schools and no bonuses for the same job.

When I signed my contract a few months before this happened, I went through the joys of the initial Army physical and picked a job; my recruiter advised me to take whatever I felt good about.  Nothing else, no advice about bonuses or schools being guaranteed.  Nothing.  He was such a great help and an outstanding NCO (lots of sarcasm there).  So, when the NCO reviewed my available choices of jobs and bonuses, and schools, it went like this:

“Ok, kid, I pulled a few favors due to your scores, and we can offer you some jobs here working with nuclear weapons or something, but that is boring you don’t’ wat that.  We got intelligence operations stuff here, again kind of boring and no actual use on the outside.  Geospatial intelligence stuff; man, your scores were excellent.  We got the tried-and-true engineer, field artillery, and some nuclear medicine stuff.  Not helpful if you ask me; no one wants that kind of stuff in the civilian world, and promotions are slow.  But, ah-ha!  Here you go, kid!  Infantry!  Most challenging job out there and has so many applications when you get out.  And it looks like you are out of luck; no bonus or schools are possible with any of these jobs.”

Little did I know then that the MEPS NCO was steering me away from jobs that could translate easily into civilian careers, education, and relatively good pay.  I believe he was trying to make a quota into specific jobs, like the infantry, to avoid some negative counseling or performance review.  Anything in the nuclear and intelligence area has impressive skills, education, and certifications, and most of those Soldiers get picked up for high-paying civilian jobs quickly when they transition.  I was confused by how he presented the jobs to me; more importantly, I knew I did not want to go into the infantry, engineers, or field artillery.  My recruiter was infantry, and I was not very impressed with him or how he described the job to me.  I had no desire to build or blow things up, so engineers were out.  And artillery just seemed boring to me.  So, I stepped out of the room to use the bathroom, playing the only power card I could think of at the time.  When I came back into the room, I told the NCO I wanted to be an MP and get a bonus.  A few short minutes later, the NCO came back with an offer to be an MP with a five-year contract, no bonus, and no school.  I signed the contract after a few minutes of back and forth.  I got played at that moment.  That NCO probably offered me a five-year contract with no bonus or school to try to steer me back to the infantry for three years.

That is how I selected the Military Police Corps.  I may have got played, but I love the choice now.

Back to the present (in the story, at least).  All twenty-one of us spoke with our recruiters and just hung out that night eating pizza, trying to find someone to buy us alcohol while watching TV.  It was very uneventful.  Nothing like my last night as a civilian should be, I thought.  I had my whole life ahead of me to party and make bad decisions.  The following day the recruiters woke us up early and forced us out of the hotel and into a few vans to go to the airport.  Our recruiters laughed as they walked away from the check-in counters after we all were set.  That was the first time I wondered if I had made the right choice. 

That day was the first time I had boarded an airplane ever.  I had no idea what was going on or what to expect.  I realized I led a great but slightly sheltered life that day.  I never really had to deal with people who had not led lives, mostly like mine.  I was following the crowd and trying to fit in.  That behavior continued for the next few months in basic and AIT.  The plane I was on took me to St. Louis, MO, where I was corralled into the local USO by an NCO wearing a strange round brown hat I had never seen.  That was my first experience with a Drill Sergeant.  Nice guy, he was; he helped me and a few others get to the USO and checked us off a list.  Then the first waiting game began.  I and a few others waited at the USO for hours.  I was starting to think that Basic and AIT were not going to be too bad since the Drill Sergeants at the airport were so patient and most lovely.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. 

I will continue this story within the next few weeks, so check back to read about my journey from a bit of a country kid from Michigan to a trained Soldier.  Thank you for your time!