Processing
So trying to join the Army didn’t work out, so I started talking to Navy recruiters, decided to join the Navy, and the correspondence between the recruiters and I began. I met with the recruiters a couple of times to sign some documents and to do other paperwork. One of the times I had to sign some documents, the recruiters showed up to my parents house because I sold my car. The recruiters and I met in the front yard while my father was on the roof doing some prep work for a new roof. While I’m talking with the recruiters and signing some documents, my dad makes a noise as if to intentionally agitate me and rile me up. My father and I don’t have the best relationship, obviously. While this noise my father made did annoy and upset me, all I said was “hard at work” and nodded in the direction of my father, who was on the roof. I was upset because he had no good reason to make this awful growling noise while the recruiters were there. I was also glad because the recruiters were able see how my father is. Now that I think about it, since he was cyberstalking and was talking to the recruiters behind my back, he probably mischaracterized and tried to demonize me by telling the recruiters I have anger issues, without telling them he’s an abusive harasser; in fact, the is called reactive abuse.
So once the paperwork was done, it was time for me to take a physical, choose a job, and swear in at the processing center. When I was done with the physical, I sat down with a career counselor and was presented with a couple of options. I wasn’t too picky because my whole mindset was to serve my country, where ever I am needed. I was only picky about the ship date and told the career counselor that I wanted to ship yesterday. So I asked for whatever was in demand with the soonest ship date. The career counselor made a suggestion, and I quickly accepted. Since I had a bachelor’s degree, the career counselor said before I sign the contract, that he wanted me to speak with an officer recruiter. I was already not interested because I know that the application process for officers takes more time than for enlisted. So when I spoke with the officer recruiter, I asked a couple of questions and got more information, but I didn’t like the way he was selling the opportunity to me; he started to degrade the enlisted part of the Navy, and it was blatant and seemed out of character for him to do that. I don’t know if he was playing me and this was bait, because there is a chance that I could not be chosen to be an officer, which would further delay my effort to join the military. I mentioned before that I felt like my effort to join the Navy wouldn’t be met with resistance as with the Army, and it was at the point when I sensed and foresaw some possible resistance. So I decided not to apply as an officer and join enlisted. I signed my contract, swore in, and went home with a ship date of less than a month.