A Trip to the Recruiter

One goal this Summer was to get my boys in front of a recruiter. It is one thing to talk the talk, but I needed to witness for myself what their level of interest was in their quest to join the service. The Naval recruiter called the other day to verify our address as the soon to be Senior had requested more information. I took that opportunity to say:

"Hey, how about we just come down, and I'll bring my youngest boy with as well"

Now the Senior is more interested in the Air Force, while it is the Junior eying the Navy. I figured the spiel is similar, and the nuanced differences between the services can be sorted out later.

It was a quality learning experience, with the recruiter hammering the 3 Ms of enlistment; Mental, how are you doing in school and your score and the ASVAB; Moral, are you staying out of trouble, no serious criminal violations, etc.; and Medical, are you fit, healthy with no serious or chronic health conditions.

They are both fine in the Medical category, but the Senior needed to hear the importance of the mental, and the Junior the deal breaker the Moral piece could be. The older boy, being 17, opted to take the preliminary ASVAB, while his brother watched a video of the first year of a sailor.

ASVAB scores are based on percentiles, with a passing score of 35, meaning you have scored better than 35% of other test takers. The high score of 99 puts you in the top percentile, scoring better then 99% of your peers. He nailed the test, with a preliminary number of 73. He is told this was a pretty solid scored and a number, that if verified by taking the complete battery, would pretty much give him an opportunity to pick his own job.

We then stopped into the Air Force recruiter just to give him a chance to see what the difference is and also poked out head in to the Marine office as well.

This weekend is our annual excursion to the cabin up Nort'. This will give all of us a chance to rest, relax, and think through the options in front of us, and the life changing commitment it will be. Something tells me we will be scheduling an exam with one of the recruiters next week, the only questions is, with which one.

Flash