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TLDR: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." Proverbs 16:9.
Two plus years later and here's the promised update:
I ended up having to request a waiver for a surgery that I had at birth (over 30 years ago) and that delayed my packet for about 6 months in MEPS because of the new Genesis medical system changeover. During that time, I took a seminary course out of an interest to learn more about my faith and was hired on the civilian side as the Spiritual Life Director at a Christian school. I began to discern a call to work in ministry and am now enrolled full time in seminary and got married to a great girl from my church.
On the military side of things, I let go of ambitions to run and gun and took up the arms of spiritual warfare and direct commissioned as a Chaplain Candidate in the ARNG. It was affirming how quickly the path moved once I made this my target.
The resources and connections on this forum were extremely valuable. It shot holes in any rose colored glasses as I had, made me think seriously about the team I might have joined at an advanced age, and kept me humbly in pursuit of the path the Lord had for me even when I couldn't see more than one step in front of myself. As a nice bonus, the training resource I found in Kevin Edgerton at 18 Alpha Fitness set me up to be the Chaplain Corps guy that's smoking everyone else in the ACFT.
All that to say, thank you to everyone who has contributed their experience not just to this elite force, but also to sharing their knowledge. If you're considering this path as I was, do your research, count the cost, and go where you're best equipped and most needed. Here's a final word of the day from James 4:13-15:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Pro Deo Et Patri through Christ Alone,
-asg
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