The reason behind joining the military varies wildly, from it will pay for their college to people just wanting to join. This begins the long and sometimes tedious journey of joining the military.  

The obvious first step in joining the military is contacting a recruiter and meeting them. Whether that be in person or through a virtual meet such as a zoom call, this meeting is vital to the process. Your recruiter will tell you what you’re going to need in order to join the military. This begins a long line of signing papers, whether it be the three medical forms or the 50 confirmation forms.

Up next for aspiring military men and women is Military Entrance Processing Station or MEPS.  The biggest hurdle when it comes to joining the armed forces. Here they want to know about your history, all of it. From that scraped knee in 3rd grade to when you busted head open. This is the place where most get turned away or end up doing the process up to now again in 6 months.

Graduate Noah George comments on the process saying, “It was really overwhelming actually. It’s something I always wanted to do but you can’t get a full grip on what it’s actually like until you’re going through it.”

After this, the upcoming members will do their inauguration and select the job they want.  Some come into step with no clue as to what job they want, while others know what they want.

Ones such as Gavin Holley said, ”Before I took my ASVAB I wanted to do cyber security and after I qualified for it, I took it as quickly as possible.”

Afterwards, a recruiter will help you get into shape for boot camp and will help with other things in their life to get them to boot camp. Now, the part everyone knows of, Boot Camp. For 3 months of a recruits life they will get drilled into their basic training by 3 drill instructors. This is the physical hurdle of joining the military as most would expect. After this ordeal, they’’ll come out ready for duty.