Went to another Army recruiter today and found out some interesting things, although he didn't pull records as he was busy and I caught him just at closing time.

First, I can take the ASVAB again since it has been 13 years, whereas the previous recruiter told me I couldn't. Second, after a succussful processing at MEPS for the army, you basically get your orders there as soon as your MOS is picked. This ticks me off even more, since I told that freakin first recuiter that I needed a few weeks to tie up loose ends. The guy was basically trying to corner me and ship me out ASAP (the recruiting quarter ended last Friday) so he could meet his quota.

I'm doing this for the country and for myself, not for some fat body E-5 who has been a pencil pusher for the last 20 years. I love how these guys act like they are doing me a favor when they fell short of their last recruiting cycle by 30%, apparently they are not used to dealing with adults.

I also requested to be sent back to boot camp, but the Army is telling me instead I'd be sent to a 4-week "warrior school." I understand they want to get people trained as fast as possible and save as much money as possible by avoiding unnecessary retraining, but I want to get smoked. I want to, and I will try to get basic again at every corner I in the MEPS process. Plus, last time around I went through the last basic cycle at fort Dix, NJ, and everything had been dismantled and shipped to other bases. We got no weapons training outside of M-16s, the grenade fields had beend razed, the obstacle courses were dismantled and shipped to other bases, there were no war games or mock bunkers to assault. Quite frankly, it was a rip off as far as training goes.

I was, however, happy to see that Army training now focuses A LOT less on all the pomp drill and boot shining garbage. I still remember getting 5 hour sleep intervals at AIT and having to stay up and extra freaking hour so I could shine my boots, it was ridiculous, it didn't teach discipline it taught you how to bust your butt for somethign that was largely irrelevant in the larger scope of things.

My age in relation to my rank is not important. The fact that most E-4s are 22 year olds means nothing to me, a 42 year old PFC deserves just as much respect for serving as 26 year old E-6 hotshot.
This isn't about promotions, salary or the ability to come home and rub my service record in everyones face like so many people do. It's about the overall mission.

I don't know anything about OCS and don't care to ever set foot on a public university as student ever again, so if it entails some mickey mouse ROTC program at a non-military university I'm going to give that one a pass. I'm no prodigy or genius, and like I said before I'm severley colorblind, so I've pretty much reserved myself to the fact that I'm not going to be pandered to here.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards Army Civil Affairs, which would put on the front lines in Iraq or Afghanastan. Civil Affairs aren't a big part of assault and defense operations and operate mostly in small groups identifying needs and vulnerable spots in the communities. Based on the MOS casualty reports I read, civil affairs personnel tend to get ambushed a lot. Demolitions also interests me, and is apparently in very high demand, but the colorblindness may keep me out of that field since I wouldnt exactly be able to distinguish between the red and the green wires

The one thing I am certain of is that I wont be going NG or reservist of any kind. It seems rather pointless, I don't want to be stuck in the states, and theres simply nothing in civilian life at the moment worth keeping me here.

I have to start packing and moving today, and have to pull bedside duty over the weekend, so next week I'm going to hit the Air force and Navy recruiters. I'm also going to see if I can find some refreshers on the ASVAB