What Was It Like To Enlist or Reenlist Etc?

Is the question a veteran hears a lot. Here's some thoughts by the numbers- from start to finish.

• I first knew I would deploy when a girl at work told me her Texas National Guard medic brother was deploying. Reserve guys go individually a lot- guard not. She showed me a newspaper which listed my old unit as one deploying. I instantly felt relieved and at peace and tense at the same time because I knew whatever mountain had to be moved it would be done so I'd be there- in whatever capacity. This was a Saturday night.
• The recruiting office was closed Monday.
• I was in the office at at 0903 hour Tuesday.
• After the debasing and painful for a forty year old guy physical at MEPPS downtown Dallas I was assigned to my unit.
• Debasing? Part of a biggy with military exams are knees which are especially prone to be bad for guys in late 30s and early 40s who have run a lot ( read that prior service military) DR. Pham- the same Vietnamese doc who did my first physical 20 years before was in my face and could still not say "Duck walk" and I still acted like I didn't understand forcing him to both say it more rapidly and forcefully "Dukwok, dukwok! Duukwaaaaahk!" and demonstrate both that exercise and the knee walk. He made me do the knee walk literally twice as much as everybody. "Ah, I thin you too oh sodier- too ode be sodier!" The 4 Ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol I took an hour before the exam helped me look up at him and smile as sweat ran down my butt crack and I wanted to vomit from the pain.
• He did think it was funny I remembered him from so many years before. When I first came in he was new to the DOD and fairly new to the US.



Not Lt Cho

• During the swearing in ceremony as usual there is always some kid who when the officer says," I- state your name, do solemnly swear..." says,"I, state your name..." The LT who conducted the ceremony was a very beautiful girl- named Cho. Anyway, absolutely beautiful and one of those people who barely touch your life you'll always think of and hope their lives work out as they wish and deserve and wish you knew how it's turning out for them.
• Here's the oath entire, "I, _____, 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." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).