MEPS Part II (Pre-Basic Training) 104 Days until Basic

Tuesday I met with the recruiter for the drive to Spokane to visit MEPS again. We left after work and ended up arriving at the Holiday Inn hotel pretty late (around 9:45 PM). My recruiter went over a couple of the security questions that he thought MEPS may be asking and then I crashed. The room was freezing when I arrived, and I had turned up the heat. About midnight I woke up very hot with the covers thrown off me. I had to get up and turn down the heat, and then I ended up tossing and turning the rest of the night until the 4:45 AM wake up call. I seem to never get a good night’s sleep at that hotel. After a quick shower I headed down for the breakfast buffet. After breakfast I had a little coffee and waited until the shuttle was ready to take all of us to MEPS in downtown Spokane. We arrived at about 6AM and had to wait outside again in the sub-freezing temperatures for about 5 to 10 minutes. Luckily I had my jacket and hat, but some of the recruits only had t-shirts. We were let in and slowly made our way through the bag check and metal detector.

The rest of the day was a lot of waiting. I would verify some paperwork, and then wait. Talk to the Army liaison and wait, had lunch and then waited. Next I had to get fingerprinted. This is all done digitally now and for some reason mine took forever. The fingerprint technician would scan a finger and wouldn’t be happy with it. He would then put some soap on my finger and then wipe it off… still no good. Alcohol wipes to the finger, clean the glass. This process went on for almost all my fingers. I guess my fingerprints have been worn down since I’m using a keyboard for the better part of the day and have been for my entire adult career. It sure wasn’t as easy as CSI makes it seem LOL. 

The next step was the security interview. The guy basically warned me of false enlistment, told me not to lie or else I would go to jail and lose all my pay (more of the scare tactics that my recruiter warned me about). He then went through pretty much all the questions I had already answered on my security form. It was a pretty painless process. I had envisioned a dark room with a spotlight on me and a table full of men in dark suits asking questions. Once this was over I sat and waited some more until three other recruits were ready to swear in. They brought the four of us into a room to watch a video warning us of desertion and going absent without leave (AWOL). Letting us know the punishments and so forth. We then all went into the ceremony room where a MEPS employee (a former navy man) taught us how to stand at attention and how to stand at ease. When the officer came in to swear us in we all stood at attention and then swore in repeating each sentence after the officer. Each of us then looked over our paperwork and biometrically signed using our fingerprint. Once this was done I received an Army backpack full of Army swag, then my recruiter and I took off for the long trek home. We finally left MEPS around 1:30PM