I finished my MEPS physical on Wednesday 3-7-12. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, all of us were herded like cattle. Yes, it was very bureaucratic. However, they all have a stressful job to do funneling tons of 17 and 18 year olds through a series of many medical exercises and tests. Here is a brief rundown of what happened that day:
Check-In: I showed up in Dallas at 4:45. Before I got out of my car I drank SO much water because I knew that I would have to pee in a cup and I didn't want to be the poor soul that had to come back another day because I couldn't pee in a cup. The check-in was a bit different than when I took the AFOQT. There was a very nice Captain that greeted us and gave us all the instructions. I was one of the first ones to arrive because I drove myself from my house. He instructed us to stand in rows of 4 shoulder to shoulder and for all the "physical only" people to get up front. So I was about 5th in line. Then the first 8 were instructed to go up the elevator. When we got there we were told to go to our branch liaison (Air Force for me) and then to the cafeteria. Then we were given our medical files and told to go to the front desk. The guy at the desk was really pissed because apparently my file wasn't ready. I had no idea what was going on but he was angrily shuffling papers around and stapling stuff. After a few minutes he handed me my file and instructed me to get in line for medical.
Medical Stuff: There are plenty of sites that give the specifics on each department and test they do in medical so I'm just going to lay out a brief overview of what happened to me.
Hearing Test: I was ushered into the back part of the facility. I got in line to get my fingerprint scanned and medical file reviewed. Then I was told to go to the first room which was a small sound-proof booth with 10 stools. I was number 4. We wore some headphones and used a Jeopardy clicker to record our results. The only thing I have to say about this is that they should get clickers that don't make noise. I mean I felt like that was all I could hear most of the time. 10 guys clicking at a furious rate. The headphones were definitively not sound proof...I passed with a very minimal (5 dec.?) hearing loss in the extreme high and low ranges.
Side Note: After we were done all ten of us got a dot sticker. I have no idea why, but it ended up being the most awesome thing ever.
Briefing: We were told to wait in a chair for our eye exams, but ended up being told to cram into a room with a projector to be briefed. By this time I was starting to feel that water I had drunk earlier...So basically the guy just read off a bunch of laws verbatim about falsifying records. I thought this is going to go by so fast, but then he said "this will take about an hour"...nice.
"Are You Drunk?" and Private (butt) Exam: When we were finally finished with signing and bubbling in all those papers one of the proctors said "Congratulations to those of you with a dot. You've just won the lottery". I still have no idea why, but if you had a dot on that day you were always the next person to go in and get your stuff done no matter how many people were in line ahead of you. Pretty cool for me because I had a dot. Anyway, by this time my bladder was about to explode. I could barley get out of the chair. We were told to line up (dots first) and do a Breathalyzer test. After that I was the first person to get my private consultation and exam. The doctor was very nice and she asked me a bunch of different medical questions. After that she checked my ears (Valsalva maneuver), throat, teeth, and eyes. Next was the rectal exam and hernia exam. I had to go SO bad that I asked if I could go ahead and do the urinalysis. They said that I might as well wait if I can, so I said I would if I could make it. There was another military guy in there to make sure there was no funny business. Yeah it was awkward, but I think people make it out to be WAY worse than it really is. The docs know it is awkward and so the do a good job of getting it over with. THERE IS NO INSERTION, WEIRDOS!
Urinalysis: When we got in there the guy said "How you guys doing?" then the guy next to me said "Fine, how are you?" the other guy looks at him with a raised eyebrow and says "Really? I'm watching guys pee all day". So yeah you step on these squares in front of a urinal and pee in a cup in front of a dude. 3 of us did it at the same time so that was better than that poor soul that had to do it by himself.
Blood Work: Self explanatory. I was in and out with my dot.
Eye Exam: I forgot to wear my contacts because I never wear them anymore. My vision isn't bad so I wasn't concerned about this. However the damn Depth Perception (Circle Test) was horrible! I never did get how to see the circles that pop out. I guessed on all of the B section and ended up failing. I'm not worried thought because I saw my civilian eye doc right after I got out of MEPS and he gave me a much better DP test with special 3D glasses and I aced it. They said I have 20/20 vision when I know I don't...
Exercises: This was the final exercise. We had to get in our underwear and stand with a bunch of other dudes as we got examined by a doc, weighted, measured, and told to do lots of really silly exercises. One guy fainted (I think he locked his knees). We had to stop the process but the proctor was determined to finish as fast as possible so he told us all to do the rest of the exercises using only half the room. 5 minutes later I was dressed with medical file in hand. I was told "Mr. Smith you are fit for service in the US Air Force", and with that I was almost done. Just had to turn all my stuff into the medical counter and that was that. I was done by 10am. Their parting words were "You're a teacher? So then you know what we go through everyday.". Too true, too true.
