The Story So Far

So, I should probably explain the events that led to me being here in the position that I am in, on the verge of being in the Army. It's kind of funny. I had always said that the Army just wasn't for me. But after waiting tables for the last seven years, I got really tired of seeing my life go absolutely nowhere. And due to numerous mounting circumstances paired with that past history of mediocrity, I found myself in a very peculiar position. It seemed that there was no way out, that my life had led to this feeling of poverty and misery. I was broke, I had no money in savings, no stability and no prospects for a brighter future in sight. I was starting to fall behind on bills and started to get really bummed out over it all. It was a burden I bore quietly along with my wife. And I felt that I had failed my family so far. Deciding to think outside the box, I told my wife that I'd join the military. So I went to a recruiter about eight months ago. There I found out that ever since the Army took away individual commissions from recruiters and made it a whole-office approach that the quality of recruiting has gone way down since fifteen years ago when I remembered my brother going to get info about the Army. They said that since I had a GED, that I'd have to take a personality test. What my recruiter DIDN'T tell me is that if I failed this test, it would stop my enlistment. First off, how in the hell can you even FAIL a personality test? Well, guess who didn't pass his. Yup, THIS guy. So at that point my recruiters told me that in order to enlist, I would have to go get 15 college credit hours. So, I enrolled for online classes with a local community college system and got it done. Working full time and doing full time college classes was alot harder than I thought it would be. But I finished it and my education level changed from GED to Some College. Prior to finishing the semester, I had no thought of being able to swear in before the semester was over. I had been working out, but too hard and too fast. I injured my knee and had to take some time off from getting in shape. At some point, my recruiter got me hopeful that we could get a transcript before the semester was over showing that I was enrolled for enough hours. Well I went to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) and was about to sign for a job but then they said that my enrollment verification was no good for them. SO a couple weeks later, I'm back at MEPS again with the right documents when I discover that in order to get the job I really wanted from the beginning, 35P Cryptologic Linguist, I need to pass a credit check to get a Top Secret clearance. Recruiters never mentioned this and they also didn't mention that I needed to have my wife's credit run also. If I would have known that, I never would have gotten my hopes up for that position. The crappy part is that I was about three signatures away from signing up and going across the hall to enlist on my first trip up to MEPS. Misinformation from my recruiters made everything more stressful. SO on my FOURTH trip up to MEPS, everything was okay and I was good to go. But the only problem was that I didn't have an MOS that I preferred anymore. So after much consideration and based on available positions that day, I took a 25Q enlistment. Wasn't the job I wanted, but it gets me in the military so I'm not complaining. Eight months after I started the process, I'm finally enlisting in two days. Almost there. The sense of anticipation is electric inside of me, and at times, I can't tell if it's excitement, nervousness, fear or peace. My life will never be the same again. This time, I got to choose that moment. The last time it happened was when my father passed away. I'm ready. It will be difficult and at times I will feel broken. And then I will pick myself back up and move on. Here I go.