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Years ago, many now actually, I went down to the Marine Recruiter to finalize my enlistment. All of my business had been done with the Marines. The math and other tests, the physicals. For me the Math and English were a breeze. It was those spatial cognitive things that were challenging.

There was one test with 30 questions. I managed to complete 7 of them, in an hour. All of the other tests were nothing, but I am still annoyed about those (I do not even know what to call them) conversion problems. One had to look at a 2 D image and convert it into a 3 D image. It was seriously one of the most difficult tests that I ever took.

The Physical was also easy, but the color blindness test had everyone get 1 wrong. I got 3 wrong. I honestly thought that I Bolo’d. Turns out that I scored extraordinarily high overall. My friend took the tests with me. His cumulative score was 72. Mine was in the mid 90s. I was in a very high score level. I was in.

I wanted to demonstrate that I could be competitive with the most fierce of our Forces. So it was Marines all the way for me. I went down a few days following to commit. I told the Sarge that I required 8 months delay. I wanted to be home for the birth of my firstborn. The Marine policy was 6 months. I was devastated. There was no way that I was going to be off far away when that child came. I had been listening to the heartbeat for weeks. I was spellbound when I first heard it after just a few weeks of the verified pregnancy. It was unimaginable that I could be absent from that birth.

So I left the Marine Office, walked across the hall, spoke with the Army Sargent, and within minutes I was enlisted in the Army, 8 months delayed. I was there for the birth of my girl and a couple of weeks after that I was all Army Basic. I wondered just what I had gotten myself into.

Turns out to have been some sort of Karmic event. I was the fourth of my paternal line to be Army. My son is the 5th. None of my siblings (4) ever served. My boy is proud of that. Maybe his son will serve, but as things currently stand, that seems unlikely.

I came so close to being a Marine. Now Marines I know laugh at me. ‘Oh, they all say that.’ I suppose that they do.