You may not have gotten in Bawanna, but not for lack of trying. As far as I'm concerned you made it. Now we just have to change your title to Admiral.Originally Posted by Bawanna
I don't belong in this sub forum but not because I didn't try. Now this is no sh!t.
Fresh out of High School I decided I wanted to go do my patriotic duty. My first choice was to follow my dad and join the Marines. He got drafted but I wanted to go by choice.
Even then I didn't hear too good, was color blind and was a little guy which I don't think meant a whole lot. This was towards the end of Nam and things were kind of in flux. They didn't really need guys so they could be a bit choosy.
Well I failed the physical for the Marines and then the Army. They told me to try the Navy which I didn't relish as I get sea sick, don't like salt water much and not nuts about boats although the bigger the better.
A buddy wanted to do the Navy on the so called buddy program so I signed up.
I went down for the physical where they found I was color blind, got to where they put you in a little tank thing for the hearing test, I think there was about 12 or 15 of us at a time. You go in, sit at a console in the dark and push the button when you hear the tone. I know I'm weak in this area so I'm totally dialed in on listening intently for that damn tone.
I'm going along just fine when suddenly the door flies open letting in the light, destroying night vision. I was grabbed from behind in a choke hold ripping me out of my chair, tearing the head set off, drug backwards out of the chamber bounced off every hard surface we passed.
Outside amidst a gathering crowd I was thrown to the ground and pummeled by a very large navy dude overseeing the test.
We're not talking patty cake here either two severely blacken eyes, bloody nose, cracked lips, loose teeth.
I thought well I've had enough of the this so I started fighting back, not a good plan.
Anyhow after probably 10 seconds which seemed like 2 hours a couple guys pull the guy off me and tell him that he grabbed the wrong guy. Apparently the guy next to me, a long haired hippie type as I recall was playing games and just hitting the button randomly which apparently didn't set well with my dude.
So I end up with the same navy doc who was doing some of the examination stuff before patching me up, staunching the blood flow and a couple aspirin or something.
Next I'm in some commanding type persons office in my skivvy's. Super nice guy, very apologetic. Explained that I did not pass but in the event of an ongoing war or new war to come back, he would see to it that I was inducted. He also explained that this was good for me since if I was accepted I would have to go straight to the brig for striking a superior officer. I explained that I was a civilian so I didn't think that applied but he didn't see it that way. He was nice totally just covering my backside.
The dude that pummeled me was brought in and he turned out to be a nice guy too, just sick of punks playing with him and he apologized profusely for grabbing the wrong guy who incidently my buddy said got pummeled as well while I was getting fixed up.
So needless to say I already had enough of the Navy at that point. My buddy did get in and told me a 100 times how lucky I was to get my battles done in one morning and not making it in.
I tried to get into the Marines a few years later again without success and told the recruiter about my experience, he got a good chuckle out of it.
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