Trying to find my place
Never say never. People say it almost every day but don’t realize the impact. It was something I had been saying since my dad first brought up the military. I had family members go in and come home a completely different person. I did not like the idea of war. It was until a best friend from high school came home after basic training and had a sit down talk with me that changed my thought process of what I thought I wanted in life. I realized the honor of serving our country was something I wanted to be able to say.
I took initiative and went to see a navy recruiter, something I said I would never do. The process seemed fairly easy after being a three sport athlete. I was in shape, young, and had no intention of going to school. He had me take an ASVAB pretest right away. I was told anything below a fifty percent on the pretest would make my odds of joining the navy slim to none, because of the budget cuts the navy was going through. I had no idea what would be on the test but I was up for the challenge. After scoring an eighty one, my recruiter asked my parents and I how fast we’d like to get things moving. Without much of a pause I said right away.
After checkups a few times a month with my recruiter, the paperwork was ready to ship to the naval doctors. My friends and family were so proud of me. Co-workers of mine told me I’d make a great soldier. I was a hard working young man with a good head on my shoulders. It was something nice to hear from some of them, being veterans themselves. For once I felt as though I finally knew what I wanted to do in life and it was right in front of me.
By now it was February. Months of being at the gym had paid off, I was just the right height and weight. I felt I was ready to take on the shape of a soldier, mentally and physically. The navy had different plans for me though. My phone rang and the caller id was from my recruiter. Typical since I had checkups every week. But this phone call...