A Handful of Flags, Part 1

It's eight thirty in the morning on Thursday, November 29, and I'm gazing down an empty field wondering how the hell we're going to accomplish what we say we can accomplish.

Normally I would be embarrassed to admit how unprepared that sounds, but I think any great risk is always accompanied by a similar feeling. Regardless, the field's reserved, the flags are ready, the ground is as soft as it's ever going to be, and all I can do is step forward, and begin.

It's interesting the direction your mind goes when locked in a repetitive activity. The small talk comes and goes, but gradually you get lost in the pattern and your thoughts. This half-dream comes very quickly for me, something I’ve learned to do when sitting in MEPS for seven hours, hoping that day would be the day I got to ship off for basic.

While most have the pleasure of experiencing the brain-drain that is the Military Enlistment Processing Station perhaps only three times before shipping, I was lucky enough to accumulate fourteen visits. Somehow a relative had gotten himself into a bit of trouble a few years back, earning an FBI flag for the name ‘J. Chlapowski.’ This sort of thing does not bode well for someone with a similar name seeking a job requiring a security clearance, and the bureaucracy that is the military made any quick solution impossible. So, after my initial MEPS visits to ensure I was fit to join, I would return to MEPS periodically, bags packed for basic, only to be sent back home again because somehow comparing social security numbers was a months long process.

As you can imagine, going through the experience of leaving home for the first time repeatedly became incredibly emotionally draining. On my seventh and eighth visits to MEPS, my recruiter, sympathetic to my frustrations, began offering to renegotiate my contract, which I refused. Visits ten and eleven brought offers to cancel my contract, and I again I refused. I had made the commitment to join, I wanted to serve my country, and, damn it, I would leave under the terms I had dictated, whatever avenues of approach that entailed.

A call to the governor’s office and three visits later, I finally shipped to basic at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Day Zero, the first real day of Basic, was Thanksgiving Day, 2000.

I look up – and around – and notice roughly 300 flags around me. Volunteers have begun to show up, and the sun is nowhere near as high as it could be. Things are looking good, and I can return to my thoughts.