Five Things I Learned Being Recruited

For anyone that doesn't know, at one point in time I was in the military. Even writing that feels like a lie for many reasons one being that I never even went to basic training. More on that later. People who know me but don't know that I enlisted in the National Guard and then Army Reserve will laugh because they know who I am and how I behave and the idea of seeing me saluting or doing anything remotely related to following orders funny. This is Five Things I Learned Being Recruited.

This all started because me, an ex girlfriend, and a dead guy (not a military related death) decided that if we took these equivalency tests that we could get out of our first three periods of class. That sounded like a great idea! We get to the room they're doing this and its full of fuck ups. Just terrible ass students. Not just in a school sense, but just life. Just kids you knew would grow up to commit crime. So we finish the tests and forget about it until months later when during an assembly they tracked us down. The dead kid didn't do too well so they got at me and my ex. They told us what we did well on (I mastered nerdy shit like communications) and I was tricked into joining the National Guard. Then levels of nonsense I was unaware of began.

1. You Will Be Straight Up Lied To

This goes out to my first recruiter Sgt. Ortega. This guy could walk the walk and talk the talk. The problem is that I am good at spotting a bullshit artist so he stayed away from me when we had to be around each other. I would just watch him play his game with everyone else. He knew I wasn't joining because of any sense of honor or duty to my country. I was a broke ass Black kid from South Central who wanted that paper, son! I was told how much I'd get for basic training and smiled. $3000 for three months of just marching?! Hell's yeah!

Oh, I was so stupid. I went to lunch a few times with this recruiter and reported to a station near Capital Records and would just sit there for hours after school doing absolutely nothing but memorizing my SSN and signing my signature. He would get mad that I would actually read my contracts and whatever I signed. He bumped me to a First Class Grade E3 because it was allegedly a higher pay grade. He would say anything he needed to to get more recruits. Anything. Even at the cost of my freedom.

My recruiter for the Army Reserve was not as bad as my National Guard recruiter but she managed to lose my SS card, not set up a way for me to get home from my drills, and never let me know when we'd have PT. I did PT (physical training) wearing steel toe boots, Guess jeans and matching shirt while everyone who had recruiters that gave a damn told them to wear sweatpants and t-shirts. Getting home that first drill I was lucky that a lady lived minutes from me and started taking me there and bringing me home. Eventually I had absolutely no contact with my recruiter.

2. AWOL Really Exists

Here's how this happened. I ended up having to take summer school because teachers are bad at teaching. I refuse to take any responsibility for having to do summer school...the first time. It had to do with one teacher being abandoned by a Middle Eastern guy and another hating me and there not being a seat for me to sit in. This equals me having to take geometry and history and driver's ed. tossed in for good measure. An attempted suicide insured I failed all three but that's another story.

So I tell my recruiter that I have to go to summer school. He says okay and that he'll take care of everything. Lies! All lies! I used to head home right after school at this time but decided to hang out with folks for a while for whatever reason. When I got home my mother asked “Why were the police looking for you?” In her mind I'm sure she thought I had completed my transformation from strange child to criminal overnight. I was like, what?! She said that I was AWOL. She didn't know what that word meant but I'd watched enough Bugs Bunny cartoons to know exactly what it meant. So I called my recruiter and asked him if he had told his people that I was going to summer school. When you are in school and underage, I was almost 17 at this point, no matter what school comes first.

He probably assumed that my goofy ass was out of his hair and on my way to Fort Jackson, South Carolina already and that if I had a problem he wouldn't have to deal with it for three months. Nope! Dante was still in L.A and pissed. He stammered his way through an explanation but not saying that he fucked up and never told anyone that I was going to summer school. I couldn't just quit because I'd signed a four year contract that I couldn't get out of. This is when I decided that I needed to get the fuck out of the National Guard. What seemed the next easiest was the Amy Reserve. Before I continue, let me remind you that I stopped being smart about two years before all this occurred.

3. I Would Not Have Survived Basic Training

My ex wasn't a dumb ass like me so she didn't have to go to summer school. She flew out to basic training after me and her parents dropped her off downtown. She sent me a letter every single week which I still own till this day. She told me about the exercises they did, the forced vomiting up water, the drinking water until you vomited, and the room where you experience tear gas. Fuck that. The exercise I would have done but I know that I would've been kicked out for disobeying orders.

During my drills on the weekend where we exercised, read, and raced to see who could put on a full outfit to not be poisoned by gas I would talk to recruiters and drill sergeants all the time. They called me Bookworm because all I did was read during free time. They told me that I was different and that basic training was gonna be rough for me. As one drill sergeant put it to me on a ride home “You are gonna get your ass kicked, Bookworm. The point of basic is to break you down and make you a team player. Take away your individuality. Your ass is too much of an individual. If somebody break your ass they gon' get a medal!” This wasn't an issue of me not being able to follow orders. I just don't follow orders that don't make sense to me. Because I'm a dick.

4. I Was Not Big Enough

When I joined the National Guard I was about 5'10” and 150lbs soaking wet (compared to now being 6'1" and 220lbs). I had tried to gain weight before this and failed miserably. It wasn't that I didn't eat, I just couldn't put on weight. I took a weight gain powder from my father and lost two pounds. When I went to the physical they were mad that I was the weight I was like I was starving myself for the hell of it. They had us do things like straighten our arms out and squat. At this point one guy, the one who was the most enthusiastic about joining, was booted because his arms physically couldn't straighten out. No muties in the Army!

They did a piss test and the lady that took mine saw my name on the side and knew who my mother was. When I took the blood test the guy jacked my arm up because he couldn't find a vein. This is a thing that has gone on my entire life and keeps me from being a heroin addict the way I plan during my last few months alive. He tied me off, waited as others came and went super fast, and got mad at me like I was playing hide and seek with my veins. After almost ten minutes he just stabbed my arm, took some blood, and told me to get out of there.

5. I'm Not A Soldier

I knew this going in but it was solidified the more I read about the military experience and talked to people who had been there and done that. If you are someone that can allow yourself to be sent across the world shooting people in places you've never even considered visiting then knock yourself out. I'm not that guy and I'm not upset about it. I know the military does more than that. I'm just being glib. They do good work when they aren't killing people or spying on civilians. Glib!!!

At a certain point I stopped going to drills and got checks for zero dollars. One of those $10 checks is what led to cops aiming guns at me (click here to read that adventure). After four years I was about 20 years old and my mother called to let me know that I got a big ass letter from the Army. I was like “Oh shit! The chickens have come to roost!” or however the fuck that saying goes. I got the letter and it pretty much said that there was a new recruiter, I could sign up again, and my time was up and I was discharged. Now, I've power danced before. After my first great blowjob, after having anal sex, after kissing someone I never thought I'd kiss, after making a chick come who never came before, after getting my tax return last year, and when I was discharged from the military. If I could go back in time I never would have enlisted.

Click here for previous Five Things I Learned.