Trying to find my place

Trying to find my place

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...

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