Up again at 0400 and this time check in went off without a hitch. Then I went through all the different stations, vision, hearing, blood test, orthopedic, etc. One of the standard parts of any doctor visit is providing a urine sample but for some people that is a problem esspecially when someone is watching. Thankfully, I do not have that problem but one of the recruits I was with was having "difficulties." A CPO was in the room observing and offering words of encouragement. The recruit who was having problems asked him to "be quiet." That promptly turned the encouraging words into a gentle tongue lashing and it went on for some time after the Chief found out that the recruit was going Navy.

The last test of the day was the physical examine and consultation with the a MEPS doctor. My best piece of advice to all is don't hide anything. Tell them all the gorey details because in the end they are going to find out anyway. There are things that will disqualify you from serving like asthma but if you hide something and they find out about it later it could get you discharged, fined and possibly put in jail. Better to get a waiver for something than to get in only to be thrown out later. I listed past trips to the emergency room as well as any surgeries that I had had. To be honest most of it was glanced over as no big deal.

There was one surgery that did raise a red flag. When I was born I had an enlarge cranium. Fluid was drained from my head to correct the problem. It left me with quite a big scar on the right side of my head. I had provided all the medical paperwork that I had pertaining to the surgery and for the most part the MEPS doctors knew that it was no big deal but any major surgery like that requires that I go through consults. Not surprising because I had to go through the consults the first time I went through MEPS. No record of the consults were with my previous MEPS records so the CMO is having me go through the consults again. The Army liason office made several phone calls to Battalion and the MEPS facility I had gone through in 2003 hoping to track down proof that the consults had been completed. No luck.

Another frustrating delay made even more frustrating because the impending holidays will likely push the consults off until after the new year. I keep having to remind myself that nothing worthwhile comes easy.