12:30 p.m.: Finally! A clock! We no longer have to tell time with bladders! But boo, because now it’s time to strip down and duck walk across a freezing linoleum floor with three other equally stripped-down women.
This is the moment of truth. I start unbuttoning my shirt, but can’t really decide on a way to make getting undressed in this space any less uncomfortable, so I just drop my pants, exposing an Emporio Armani-clad booty for all to see…
…and no one cares. Because they shouldn’t. But still, it’s exciting that I can “get away” with wearing the underwear that I feel good in. I stand taller in that victory… and then the “not wearing clothes” part kicks in. A sure-fire line to Vulnerability City for me is being in any state of undress in front of other people. There are very few (I can count on one hand) that I’m okay with being kiiiiiind of naked around, even less (one) that I’m comfortable with. Its just a thing. A thing that will take a lot of getting used to over the next two or three months.
FUN FACT: You will definitely be naked with the women in your barracks for at least ten minutes a day during shower time in basic training. Not that anyone is looking, but now would be a good time to check in with the ole bush confidence-o-meter. Jus’ sayin’.
We each take our turn being weighed and having height measured. No big. Then the nurse says, “Stand behind the black line and do what I do.” and immediately begins making hand-flappy, wrist-twisty movements. We all turn into birds and fly off into the sunset. The end.
After we roost a bit (re: speedwalk and duck-walk with no clothes on) and ruffle our feathers under the florescent lights, we get our next instructions: “…take off your bra and panties, put on your gowns, and wait for the doctor to call you in to the private exam room.” AH! NAKED!
Thing number one: it has been a WHILE since I’ve worn anything besides a sports bra, so taking off a real one would have been hilarious to watch:
So now we’re just, you know, hanging out on wooden benches, in hospital gowns. It was like we’re all waiting for something really awful to happen, simultaneously joking about our haute new style. I’m third to go, and it helps a little to see two people come out unscathed and not crying before I go in.
The same doctor from before calls for me, so I grab myself by the gown-straps and sit on the exam table. He does some basic ear/nose/throat, lungs, heart (all those squishy things under your skin n’ bones) and it isn’t the worst. Then…dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuun…junk check! This is the part I am not at all looking forward to. Plus all of the other parts. But this one the most. I think the whole veil of scrutiny you’re under at MEPS doesn’t lend well to having the best attitude about having your vag and asshole getting checked on. Maybe it was just me. The good news is, that part took a cumulative five seconds. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
1:30 p.m.: After clearing medical, it’s lunch time! Dry wheat bread and browning avocados have never been so tasty.
2:00 p.m.: My Army liaison finds me in the break room shoving a cookie in my mouth, and takes me back to his office to confirm my job. He asks fifty of the same questions everyone has been asking all day. I have fifty of the same answers. He asks me about the pin-up girls I have tattooed on my forearms, because breasts, and points out a nude lady-statuette on a shelf that he’s (very tactfully) covered in electrical tape because the big bosses are there today. We now have a bond I guess. He confirms everything with a quickness and sends me off to be fingerprinted for perhaps the fiftieth time today.
2:30 p.m.: Waiting. The man taking my fingerprints this time is also asking the fifty questions everyone else is dying to know the answers to, except he’s staring me straight in the face, but his face isn’t engaged at all, its robotic or something. He is serving up robot face realness.
3:30 p.m.: After walking to the front desk from the liaison, and back, (for the fiftieth time) my job is confirmed, and the contract is signed. I’d be lying if I said it felt momentous or special in some way. It feels more like overwhelming relief that this day will be over soon. If you go through it any time, for funsies or something, you’ll know what I mean.
4:00 p.m.: I’m sitting in another waiting room with the last group of folks waiting to be sworn (or oathed) in, and a severe-looking fella from the Marine office approaches and yells at no one in particular; “What is article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice??” the five or six of us sitting there go…
…and start shuffling through our papers, as if the answer is on one of these fucking forms. I have had it with this day. Seriously, this man is scary. He goes “Well get the fuck off of your thumbs and learn it!” and walks away. Just fyi, article 86 is absence without leave, better known as AWOL. Good lesson Scary Marine Man, now I know forever.
4:10 p.m.: A gentleman at the main control desk informs us that we will be swearing in, and to go into this classroom to await further instructions. This is where everything gets real for me: I start thinking about how this is it, I’m in. Irrevocably in. For a period of five years, I go where they tell me to go, and do what I am told. That this means the entire framework of my life up to this point will be a structure in the distance. That my little sisters and I will miss a lot of birthdays together. That I’ll miss a whole lot of things with my friends. That the girl I am in love with will be farther away than ever. And especially, that my grandma will have to find another shopping buddy (I will be one tough act to follow). It isn’t permanent, but it is a Big Thing. And as much as I want to be everywhere and everything to everyone at once, I am doing this for me. While there is guilt, there is also this insane feeling of being free, like, a really fucking excited puppy running through a big hilly field during the spring, while the grass is all tall and green and dewy in the morning. Which is weird, because you know, its the Army and I like cats probably more than dogs and…
ANYWAYS.
We’re in the classroom, being instructed on how to behave and how to address the Captain who would be officiating the ceremony. Basically it goes like this: when he enters the room, we all stand at attention until he tells us to return to our seats, he then goes over relevant USMJ articles and asks if we understand. He’s a quick-talking man with a big smile and has fun asking questions that require a continuous “Yes sir!” from us, he leads us into the ceremony room where we stand “at ease” until he call us to attention and asks us to repeat after him:
“I, (your full name here), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
And with that, he congratulates us, we go back into the classroom to biometrically sign (index fingerprint) our paperwork one last time, shake hands, and are released to the care of our respective military-contracted transport home (a.k.a. kitteh litter box van). It all comes back to that van.
And that, my friends, was my experience at MEPS. While I wish it to go this smoothly for all, I do have to caution that your experience may be drastically different. It isn’t anything like a day in Dolores park, but it was not at all as terrible as I made myself believe it would be. Now, I have about one month before going back to MEPS for a checkup, and being shipped out to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina for basic training. Already, I’m a glorious combustion of feelings, and wish I had arms long enough to wrap around everyone I know and hold on until the day I go. Whatever. I’m tough, okay? It also helps to realize that while not everyone is going to be there when you get back, that the ones who are, love the shit out of you. Which is a G-D lucky thing to have.
