The First Step - MEPS

20100902 – My phone vibrated with an unrecognized number highlighted on the screen. Today was the first day I actually sat down with Sgt Hall and discussed my options and possible opportunities that awaited me in the Marine Corps.

20100914 – I have been speaking with SSgt Verduce and Sgt Hall for a week and a half.  I have been going back and forth between wondering if this is what I really wanted to do or whether I need more time to decide.  Knowing that I have been delaying far too long, I call up Sgt Hall and tell him, “I want to be a Marine”. 

20100915 – Getting up at 0400 isn’t what I had in mind, but it was no surprise.  To make it even better, the food on the breakfast buffet was cold.  The day just kept getting worse.  Between the physical exams and sitting around all day, I couldn’t decide what was worse; the embarrassment of having to try and balance while doing the duck walk, or the bore of sitting around waiting for everyone else all day.  Then the ceremony came… and it made up for everything else.

“I, Jessica Adele Edmiston, do solemnly swear
that I will support and defend the Constitution
of the United States,against all enemies, foreign
and domestic, that I will bear true faith, and
allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the

orders, of the President of the United States and
the orders of the officers appointed over me,
according to regulations and the Uniform Code of
Military Justice so help me God.”

Now I am high on life! I just got sworn in and now I am ready to go… boot camp here I come!  Well, not quite yet.  There are a few things I still need to take care of before I will be ready.  I want to be as prepared as possible, physically and mentally.  Its time to start going to pt and deciding what I want my career to be. There is so much work to be done before shipping out to the island.