Enlistment is almost impossible. No GED recipients without a minimum of 15 college credits, which is a few years, they’ll reject you for an undescended testicle, or a couple bad teeth, etc. Forget broken bones.
The job of the MEPS physicians is to KEEP YOU OUT OF THE MILITARY. PERIOD.
If you are less than a perfect specimen of humanity, you will be sent home. No matter how small and minor the issue, they will look for reasons to keep you out of uniform. I tried for years after the towers fell when I was 16. At 17, I attempted to join with parental content, but I was 6 pounds overweight. I lost the weight in a few weeks, went back, and said I can’t join with a GED without college. So I went to school as much as I could afford, but it wasn’t long enough, and my dad started having heart problems. I had to help him with the family business and couldn’t afford to go back to school.
We SERIOUSLY need to loosen our insane enlistment standards.
The Army? Should have tried the Army Guard.
15 hours is 1 full-time semester of 12 hours, and half a summer 2-class schedule. That's about 9 months or less.
...We SERIOUSLY need to loosen our insane enlistment standards.
Agree. I think we should have either a universal draft, or you get to vote once you've done one hitch in the military, an equivalent time as a first responder, or for those not physically able but mentally capable, in some equally difficult (relative to the disability) service, a la Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS.
I was Air Force, not Army. I graduated BASIC at 5'll" and 120 lbs. It wouldn't have been that difficult for a bigger guy to assault or rape me, but he'd better clear out fast afterwards and not let me ever find out who he was.
My dad was one of those little guys, and before my growth spurt he taught me a bunch about dealing with bigger guys. Hit them with a brick from behind first, and you can do about anything you want to them afterwards. I favor castration with a dull rusty spoon for rapists of any sort.
I did enlist during the last years of the war in Vietnam. They were still taking just about any warm body at that time. Including me.
WRM, MSgt, USAF(Ret.) 1973-1997
I get people in every day with GED's and never have I ever heard of any requirement for 15 hours of college.