Introductions III

[rblockmon]

Hello everyone, my name is Raymond. I'm currently an active duty soldier that is a full time student at Fort Sill. The commissioning program that I am in is Green to Gold Active Duty Option. I'm one year away from a BAS in Computer Information Systems. I've been in the Army since March 2004 and I am loving it.

My MOS is 13P Fire Direction Specialist for MLRS. I reenlisted back in 2006 for
25B Information Systems Specialists, but then I deployed to Iraq so my slot was pushed back. With 10 months in Iraq, I was picked up for Green to Gold, and I came back to Fort Sill.

My intent is claw my way through SFAS and Q course into SF as a 18A. I am eager for the challenges, hard training and commoraderie <sp?>.

I have been a long time lurker on this site, just soaking up all the knowledge, and hopefully when I hit that 1LT, I will be dropping my packet for SF. But as noted by QP's to stay focus on the 25m target - so graduating is the priority at the moment.

[PneumoGuy]

Hello Everyone,

My name is John and I am from Fayetteville, North Carolina. I am 18 years old and I am currently doing my best to join the U.S. Army, particulary becoming a part of USASOC. My whole life I have been training, reading, doing PT, doing all that I can to prepare myself mentally and physically, not just for the army in general, but aspiring to become a member of Special Operations. I don't want to come across as a John Rambo Jr., because that's not what I'm going for.

I will be graduating high school soon and I have been trying to join the Army since February of this year. I sent a medical prescreen to Raleigh, NC MEPS and they sent it back saying that I wasn't eligible to process due to me having 2 collapsed lungs last year. My right lung collapsed in February of
last year (2007) and while I was in the hospital getting a chest tube for my right lung, my left lung collapsed, but it was able to reinflate itself by the time my right lung was expanded. I was in the hospital for 3 days for my right lung. 2 weeks later, I could tell that my left lung was collapsing again, so I went to Duke Hospital in Durham and I got VATS done on my left lung. According to medical professionals, you are only supposed to do VATS if you are recurrent and my surgeon at Duke thought that I had a history of Pneumothorax in my left lung, so he did VATS, so I guess he read my history wrong. All of this happened within a month, but MEPS is still counting it as multiple Pneumothorax and are telling me that they may not reconsider me until 2010 (AR 40-501 says that I must wait 3 years).

Nevertheless, me and my never quit attitude continues to fight it out. I went to MEPS in Richmond, Virginia to try and process and I was able to get through the whole physical with no problems, other than my Pneumothorax. The Chief Medical Officer there said that I would definitely get a waiver for this. I was in high spirits at this point and I thought sure I would get a waiver. Four days later, my recruiter calls and says that they denied my waiver. I have an active duty officer that is helping me get a medical waiver and he looked at my database and the MEPS station never even sent my waiver to USAREC. I called MEPS in Richmond to get info on my waiver process and they said that USAREC denied it, but I found out that it never left their office. Courtesy of civilians dictating if you join the military or not.

MEPS is bar none one of the most hypocritical processes I have ever went through in my life so far. My civilian surgeons state that I am fine, and I know that I'm fine. My recent APFT score is a 270, I know it isn't perfect, but I am continuing to work for a 300 or above. Your average recruit doesn't even score that, so my score not being a perfect 300 should be irrelevent. MEPS likes to use the excuse that "Your civilian doctor has no prior military experience and doesn't understand the rigorous training that the military does." Ok, having said that, the military hires civilians to work at MEPS, who have had no prior military experience, and these folks are dictating whether I join or not.

I'm not a jackass that knows he isn't qualified, but is trying to join anyways. This is probably how I am being labeled by MEPS and the Army, but I wouldn't be wasting mine and their time if I knew I wasn't qualified.

I have written my Congressman and I am almost done filming a video of me doing PT that is above and beyond regular army standards and I am getting my recruiter and station commander to help me send it to USAREC, I just pray to God that they don't shove it under some stack of papers because they are having a bad day and actually watch it.

We are at a time where we need good future NCOs, good future soldiers. There is a war going on and we are hurting for men in boots. It strongly offends me that some joker who has no knowledge of the military and just joins for the benefits, gets through the MEPS process with a breeze, he ends up hating the army and gets out after 3 years. This guy is allowed to join, but not a motivated and well fit guy like me. Even better, you got some guy who has a history of being in trouble with the law and has done every drug on the earth, but this guy gets a "Moral Waiver" and gets in. But no, the ones with the so called "medical conditions" have to prove their life away that they are fit to join. It's a shame that the system is crooked this way. Everytime someone hears me speak out the way things actually are, they just give me a whatever and that life isn't fair. This is the attitude that is spreading like a disease and it creates a demoralizing mindset that can be seen throughout conventional units and both the military and civilian side of our country. This "I don't care attitude" and "I just hop on the bandwagon and go along with everyone, whether it be right or wrong" attitude needs to cease. It is so easy to do the right thing, so why doesn't anyone do it? I am not in the army yet, so you are probably thinking that I am unqualified to even state my opinion on the matter, but I know that you know where I am coming from.

I wanted the Option 40 Contract (11B--Airborne--RIP) contract and spend some time in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Good Lord willing everything goes right, spend some time there, then carry over into Special Forces. As this plan is currently delayed due to my situation with MEPS, I have registered for an EMT course and will try and work my way up to Paramedic until I can join in 2010. I consider it the closest thing to being in a high stress environment like the military. I can't be a cop because I'm not 21 yet, besides, you can't go wrong with the medical field.

I apologize for the ranting, but I am going to keep fighting and giving it my all to join up. We need high quality NCOs on the battlefield and good soldiers to lead the way. I already have the Ranger Creed memorized and everything.

My time is coming.

Sorry again for the rambling, but that is my life at the moment.

[18C4V]

Originally Posted by TOMAHAWK9521

Greetings all. 21+ year SF guy. Started in 2/75. Finishing up as a Team Daddy and now retiring. Looking for something to do back home in CO.

Hello and welcome aboard. As soon as you mentioned Romero as your JR 18E, I knew who you were.

You and I were in the same class back in Aug/Sep and I was across the hall from you with the other charlies. I was the guy running on the treadmill in the gym while you gym rats were curling cars.

[Surgicalcric]

Originally Posted by Future75Ranger

Hello Everyone,

My name is John

I sent a medical prescreen to Raleigh, NC MEPS and they sent it back saying that I wasn't eligible to process due to me having 2 collapsed lungs last year. My right lung collapsed in February of last year (2007) and while I was in the hospital getting a chest tube for my right lung, my left lung collapsed...

2 weeks later, I could tell that my left lung was collapsing again, so I went to Duke Hospital in Durham and I got VATS done on my left lung. According to medical professionals, you are only supposed to do VATS if you are recurrent and my surgeon at Duke thought that I had a history of Pneumothorax in my left lung, so he did VATS, so I guess he read my history wrong. All of this happened within a month, but MEPS is still counting it as multiple Pneumothorax and are telling me that they may not reconsider me until 2010 (AR 40-501 says that I must wait 3 years)...

John:

Welcome to PS.com and thank you for your willingness and desire to enlist. But at this time it isnt in the cards for you.

Having said that your assumptions about the way the Docs at MEPS interpret AR40-501 are wrong. The Docs at MEPS have a job to do and thats to put medically QUALIFIED recruits into the military not those who have a great chance of having future trouble with preexisting medical conditions. AR40-501 is pretty cut and dry when it comes to your condition. You have a history of pneumos.

It isn't going to hurt you to wait two years to enlist. There will still be plenty of people to kill and you will still have plenty of time to serve. My advice to you is to continue to do PT, stop blaming others for you drawing a short stick at this time, get a job, go to college and in two years, or better yet AFTER you graduate college, if you havent had any other troubles with Pneumo's enlist at that time.

In the mean time, do alot of reading here.

Best of luck.

Crip

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Future75Ranger

Hello Everyone,

My name is John and I am from Fayetteville, North Carolina. I am 18 years old and I am currently doing my best to join the U.S. Army, particulary becoming a part of USASOC. My whole life I have been training, reading, doing PT, doing all that I can to prepare myself mentally and physically, not just for the army in general, but aspiring to become a member of Special Operations. I don't want to come across as a John Rambo Jr., because that's not what I'm going for.

I admire your dedication, but I do not want you with me on a mountaintop in Afghanistan in the middle of a firefight and 20 hours from Duke when your lungs deflate again. I am sorry, but it appears that you have a condition which is contradictory to military service.

If you do some searching and reading, you will see that this has been beaten to death here by a number of people with a variety of physical defects that preclude their service in SF, or in the military.

How many buddies do you think should die in the efforts to get you out and back to an area where you can be treated? You could probably add mission failure to your tab, as well.

If the Rangers will let you in with the problems you have, they are more desperate for warm bodies than I thought.

Take Crip's advice. Do PT, find a job where you will learn something, or just stay in school, and wait till the time is up. You will do no one any good by putting your team mates lives at risk, and your condition could recur. I would thank you for doing this, as I am sure they would as well.

Best of luck.

Welcome all!

TR

[PneumoGuy]

The Reaper

I completely understand where you are coming from and I realize why you see things the way you do.

The docs labeled my pneumothoraxes as Spontaneous, however, what I was doing when they happened I consider traumatic. I held my breath to the point that I couldn't breath and strained at the same time while doing an exercise to build more endurance to hold my breath longer underwater. I felt the pneumothorax pain then, which happened in 06, I don't even remember the month. I didn't know I had a collapsed lung at the time, but when I did realize that it had collapsed and recognized the familiary pain, I knew it was a pneumothorax. I can say that I had it well over a year before I even realized what was wrong. The docs labeled it as Spontaneous, but I know in my heart what I was doing when it happened and it didn't "just happen" for the hell of it.

I have been in top notch shape my entire life. I have been doing gymnastics my entire life along with heavy PT workouts.

Shit happens, you can't stop just because something happens. You gotta pick your ass up and keep driving forward.

Anyone who is medically qualified knows that the majority of people who get pneumothoraxes are tall, thin VERY healthy men. I fit the profile considering I am 5'8 and only weigh 116 pounds. I am underweight, I am supposed to weigh 125 at my height and I do all that I can to reach my "supposed to weight." I should eat more than I do and sleep more than I do because it wear and tears on my body. It is something I need to work on.

I am sure you have heard of Paul Howe, a former Special Operations soldier who served in Somalia. He got denied his first time for enlistment because he had a mild case of asthma. Lucky for him, he joined at a time where people were blessed off and based more on their capabilities and not so much on a regulation. He knew that he could do it and he ended up being one of the best soldiers to ever serve in the U.S. Army.

The youngest Marine to ever receive the Medal of Honor lied because of his age. He was at Iwo Jima. I consider lying to MEPS to be a wrong thing, which is why I told what happened, but in this day and time, doing the right thing is doing the wrong thing. People can continue this negative and demoralizing mindset all they want, but I am going to keep my "common good will" mindset because that's what makes an unconventional unit so tight and close, being able to trust each other and doing the right thing.

Again, I completely understand where you are coming from, however, people should be based on their true capabilities and on a case by case basis, not by a piece of paper by some admin who has never experienced it before. As long as the process continues having this attitude, we will continue to get undedicated soldiers who will aspire for rank, but don't have the responsibility to take that rank and they are going to lead a group of men into combat. Sad, but true.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Future75Ranger

The Reaper

I completely understand where you are coming from and I realize why you see things the way you do.

The docs labeled my pneumothoraxes as Spontaneous, however, what I was doing when they happened I consider traumatic. I held my breath to the point that I couldn't breath and strained at the same time while doing an exercise to build more endurance to hold my breath longer underwater. The docs labeled it as Spontaneous, but I know in my heart what I was doing when it happened and it didn't "just happen" for the hell of it.

I have been in top notch shape my entire life. I have been doing gymnastics my entire life along with heavy PT workouts.

Shit happens, you can't stop just because something happens. You gotta pick your ass up and keep driving forward.

Anyone who is medically qualified knows that the majority of people who get pneumothoraxes are tall, thin VERY healthy men. I fit the profile considering I am 5'8 and only weigh 116 pounds. I am underweight, I am supposed to weigh 125 at my height and I do all that I can to reach my "supposed to weight." I should eat more than I do and sleep more than I do because it wear and tears on my body. It is something I need to work on.

Again, I completely understand where you are coming from, however, people should be based on their true capabilities and on a case by case basic, not by a piece of paper by some admin. As long as the process continues having this attitude, we will continue to get undedicated soldiers who will aspire for rank, but don't have the responsibility to take that rank and they are going to lead a group of men into combat. Sad, but true.

I disagree completely.

The opinion of the doctors and experts the Army hires to write the regs and set the standards do, and should count far more than your personal desires and wishes. This is spoken as someone who has lost people to injuries (some pre-existing) and had to drive on with the mission without them.

One lesson that we have failed to learn in this country is that actions have consequences, and that no really does means no.

Note that you are dealing with a situation you created, and are in a three year penalty box, which is imposed on everyone who has experienced what you have. That seems fair enough to me. Get better, get in shape, and wait your turn. This war is not going anywhere.

I have humped rucks bigger then you for many miles, but I do not want to ever have to decide between carrying you, or the team gear we need to accomplish our mission. At 116, or even 125, I really doubt your long term viability and ability to carry the loads for the distances that we require. That alone could induce respiratory problems for you. The general rule of thumb is 1/3 of your body weight for optimal loading, 1/2 at max for short distances. An average infantryman in Iraq is humping more than 120 lbs. of lightweight gear, every day. The Ranger and SF are carrying more. Strap that on and go for a walk sometime. What weapon, ammo, or team gear should we be carrying for you? The fact that you cannot hump that weight does not make you a bad person, any more than not being able to have a baby makes you deficient in some way. It is biological, and you have to learn to live with it.

BTW, PM me with what you would like for a new user name. We do not live in the future here, just the present.

TR

[Motivated]

Hello all, hats off to those that walk the walk. 18x'er shipping to OSUT in August, will just be the fly on the wall here. Thanks for everything.

[MasterOfMyFate]

Hello All,

After seeing the beginnings of me losing hold on the reins of my life, I joined the Army 16 months ago. Being that I never really thought about it before this point, I decided to be a Commo guy, 25B(Nice desk job, with plenty of AC). None the less, I knew joining the military would put my life back on track and get me to where myself and my family needed to be much faster than any other route.

Now, after being in for a little while, and doing my own research(Online and speaking with SF personnel/former SF personnel, for I am stationed in Stuttgart, Germany very close to 10th Group), I have decided that I would like to try the getting into the Special Forces. I see myself as having the drive and ability, and others see me the same. HOPEFULLY, if all goes as planned, by the 1st of February I will be a SPC and will be able to leave for Selections. I have already spoken with the local SF recruiter, and have begun training (A few of the NCO's in my unit have implimented an SF PT program based off of the training book we recieved from the recruiter, and our 1SG approved us doing this workout in place of normal daily PT)and working on my packet/physical.

[dogmanvn]

Older guy from early days of SF in VN.

[Eximietate]

Gentlemen, I am an NQP in the 20th, going to SFAS on 04 June 2008. I have learned a great deal from this site and I am positive that much of the information will assist me in the pipeline. Thank you very much for the opportunity to learn from you guys. V/R

[fencecop]

I am not a Specail Forces soldier, however I do believe in the mindset and way of life. I agree with the way SF trains and fights.

About myself......keep the laughter down boys...;I am in the MO Army National Guard and I serve on the newly formed SRT. I also work as a Patrolman for a municipality in the State of MO. I am a member of the depatments SWAT team and double as the instructor.

I wont bore you with stories of how I want to be SF and think I might try to be. Seams like everywhere I go I run inot those guys. It is in my opinion that the SF has brought so much to the SWAT table and we still have tone to learn from you guys. Keep up the good work and stay safe.

Troy Green

[3rdLT]

Just found this forum. Plan on lurking much more before I post anything besides this intro. I'm a cadet at the Johns Hopkins University. I've attended Airborne, LTC, and will be attending CTLT this summer as well as LDAC. Can't wait to read all the posts on here, this is a great resource. Thanks.

[alfromcolorado]

Hello MOMF

Your message struck a chord when I read it. Sounded familiar.

I was hell bent on getting out of the army once upon a time. Needed something more and my senseless existence just wasn't cutting it... Going to the motor pool and PMCSing the vehicles that never moved several times a week, etc...

My 1SG was a former SFer in Nam and decided to "rescue" me one day. Not sure why but he did. He started telling me about a place where things were different... He didn't sugar coat it though. Said it was a challange, said there were dirt bags there too and sometimes even some political BS. But he said he would still be there if his body allowed it (got a profile for something or another).

Then he got the recruiters to come talk to me one day...

I agreed and off I went. They didn't have SFAS then, used Phase 1 for that. Then 2 and 3. I did my best and made it through... Then the true test. What was it like in an SF Unit.

All thoughts of leaving the army were buried 6 months later. Was it perfect? No, there was some BS and such... But it was FUN. Even when it sucked it was FUN. Garrison was always where it sucked. Deployed was the place to be and you were there with a quality of people you will never see again when you finally retire.

I miss the team. I have been retired now 10 years and I realize that those were the best people I have ever worked with, hands down. I consider it a positive break when I work with a former SFer now days.

It can be hard on marriages too though. Your wife needs to understand what is coming. Because SF is about being deployed.

But from what I have seen good marriages became stronger and shaky ones, well, shook apart. (Mine was shaky I guess... )

Good luck to you

Al

Originally Posted by MasterOfMyFate

Hello All,

After seeing the beginnings of me losing hold on the reins of my life, I joined the Army 16 months ago. Being that I never really thought about it before this point, I decided to be a Commo guy, 25B(Nice desk job, with plenty of AC). None the less, I knew joining the military would put my life back on track and get me to where myself and my family needed to be much faster than any other route.

Now, after being in for a little while, and doing my own research(Online and speaking with SF personnel/former SF personnel, for I am stationed in Stuttgart, Germany very close to 10th Group), I have decided that I would like to try the getting into the Special Forces. I see myself as having the drive and ability, and others see me the same. HOPEFULLY, if all goes as planned, by the 1st of February I will be a SPC and will be able to leave for Selections. I have already spoken with the local SF recruiter, and have begun training (A few of the NCO's in my unit have implimented an SF PT program based off of the training book we recieved from the recruiter, and our 1SG approved us doing this workout in place of normal daily PT)and working on my packet/physical.

[dustyj]

Hello. My name is Dusty and I am joining in the fall under an 18x contract.I was active for about 5 years with the 101st.I did a couple of tours and got out.I see that I made a not so good decision.Some of my old buddies have left the line and went on to SF.They told me that they should have went sooner. I am ready to give it my all and come on board.I will do my research before I ask anything, and plan on gathering as much info as possible. Thanks.