Rejoining the Military After 21 Years

This article is the what and the when of joining the military at 43 years old. If you are interested in the why, standby, it’s coming.

Some things that might be important to know going into this:

• I was on active duty in the Marine Corps from the late 90s till the early 00s.
• I have a Veterans Affairs disability rating of 20% — 10% for each knee.
  • I had arthroscopic surgery to repair a ligament.
• I take daily medication for various conditions.
• Other things in my records you’ll see mentioned below:
  • migraines: I had a particularly stressful year when I started getting migraines. I asked my doctor about it once so it was documented.
  • post concussion syndrome: I had a concussion when I was on active duty. It was in my records as post concussion syndrome.
  • Meniere’s disease: Some years ago it was suggested that I might have Meniere’s disease owing to a ringing in my ears that came and went.

Timeline

2023-08-05: Initial contact with Air Guard recruiter
2023-08-24: Pre MEPS documents requested
2023-09-22: MEPS
2023-09-28: Submitted waiver documents to recruiter
2023-10-14: Additional waiver documents were requested by the Surgeon General
2023-11-16: Appointment for blood test
2023-12-04: Results from blood test arrived in the post
2023-12-14: Waiver approved
2023-12-29: ASVAB
2024-01-06: 134th Public Affairs interview in Knoxville, TN
2024-02-03: Signed enlistment papers and swore oath of enlistment

Pre MEPS Documents Requested

The first step in the process was getting medically cleared through MEPS, the Military Entrance Processing Station.

The recruiter asked for some standard paperwork and medical document. After he submitted the initial package, they asked me to provide documents for the list below.

1. latest TSH, Vit D, Vit B12 level and H/H
2. all records on dx and tx of migraines and current status
3. pharmacy records for last 3 years
4. all records on post concussion syndrome
5. all records for meier’s [sig] disease

I can only guess that they contacted Veterans Affairs to request my medical records and based on that, wanted more. The peculiar thing is, all of this was already in my records. I used the Veterans Affairs system to pull the documents I gave them. Once I gave those to the recruiter, he submitted them and I was given a date to report to MEPS.

MEPS

I arrived at Drury Inn at 15:30. “Mr. Jason” was in charge of assigning rooms. He did a good job of matching roommates by type; Marine with Marine, shippers with shippers, sex and age similar. Since I was 43, he told me to go to my room and he’d try to find someone closer to my age. About an hour later a guy came to my room to say he lived in town and would rather stay at home. I had the room to myself.

Dinner went at 17:00. Meatballs, mashed potatoes, salad.

The next morning I did not get the wake-up phone call I was promised. Good thing I had set the room alarm clock. I went down for coffee and returned to my room. The room-mate returned about 04:15 saying they were checking out of the rooms already. Thankfully I was already packed so I went down and turned in my key card. The bus left about 05:00.

We divided into service groups at MEPS. I turned in the paperwork my recruiter gave me and was ushered inside to check-in.

We did a blood pressure check first. My resting heart rate is ~65 beats per minute. According to their machine, my heart rate that morning was 92. We then had a brief on what the day would entail; a breathalyzer, hearing test, blood draw, urinalysis. It was then off to see the physicians. I spoke to one doctor about medical history. I was then sent into a room where the male applicants sat in their underwear awaiting a physical.

When I went into the exam room I was worried my knees wouldn’t allow me to do the duck walk proficiently. I was worried for no reason. The duck walk was two steps, not five with a turn-around and five more as the internet would lead you to believe. The doctor even told me he’d never failed anyone for not being able to do it. Maybe I was just lucky and other doctors are not so lenient.

After that I was made to take a computer test and a personality test. You could hang meat in that room. I shivered the whole time.

After the tests, I went to the Air Force office and was told that none of the things I was worried about needed a waiver, but I did have one thing that would need a waiver. The guy in the Air Force office said my recruiter would fill the paper for that and, provided it was granted, I had passed all medical requirements and would not need to return to MEPS.

If you are worried about some medical condition you should look for it in the Department of Defense Instruction for Medical Standards for Appointment document. You can see a PDF of it by clicking here, or search the web for DoDI 6130.03. Some conditions are not waiverable, some are. For more on the process read How to Get a Medical Waiver to Join the Military by Ryan Guina.

Submitted Waiver Documents to Recruiter

I submitted a blood panel and a letter from my doctor explaining my prescribed medication.

Surgeon General Requested Additional Lab Results

The Surgeon General sent a letter back requesting more labs. It was full of medical nomenclature I did not understand. I just printed it and gave it to the doctor. After a short consultation, I gave a couple vials of blood. A week later I got a call that the results were back and they’d be mailing them along with the requested letter. I gave these to the recruiter who submitted them to the Surgeon General’s office. Ten days later, the waiver was approved.

Now that I was medically cleared, it was on to the academic test the military requires of everyone enlisting.

ASVAB

I had begun studying for the ASVAB a couple of months before. I started with the pre-assessment test in the Kaplan ASVAB Total Prep book. Knowing I wanted a job in Public Affairs I would need a 72 on the General composite score. I did well on the pre-assessment subtest for Word Knowledge and Paragraph Comprehension but poorly on Arithmetic Reasoning. This made sense as I read about an hour every day and have been doing so for the last 20 years but do very little math.

I started with ratios, rates, and proportions at Khan Academy. After a month I took another assessment test for Arithmetic Reasoning and found that I was not able to translate the word problems into the equations taught at Khan Academy. I then found a YouTube channel called Grammar Hero. The host has videos addressing very similar questions to what you’ll see on the ASVAB. He explains the formula you’ll need to answer the questions and does a series of problems using the method.

I spent an hour every morning before work and a couple of hours on weekends for three months. I did not spend any time at all on subtest material. I only studied subjects relevant for Arithmetic Reasoning. With that level of effort, here are my scores:

Overall: 90

Mechanical: 98
Administrative: 80
General: 96
Electronics: 87

General Science: 60
Arithmetic Reasoning: 63
Word Knowledge: 66
Paragraph Comprehension: 65
Verbal Expression*: 66
Mathematics Knowledge: 50
Electronics Information: 64
Auto & Shop Information: 64
Mechanical Comprehension: 65
Assembling Objects: 68

* Word Knowledge and Paragraph Comprehension are combined to determine a Verbal Expression score used only by the Air Force.

Many people take the ASVAB at MEPS. I didn’t want the added stress and asked my recruiter if I could take it at another time. He said the local community college hosted a weekly ASVAB. I took the computerized version in a room with about 12 others.

Public Affairs Interview

When I got my ASVAB scores I was also given a list of available jobs in Alabama. The only Public Affairs job was in Montgomery. That’s the 187th Fighter Wing. The Red Tails of Dannelly Field. The Tuskegee Airmen legacy. It’s also a four-hour drive from my house.

I called the recruiters at the 134th Refueling Wing in Knoxville, Tennessee which is an hour closer. I was told they were 118% staffed. The recruiter said she’d ask the Public Affairs Officer and see if they were interested anyway. They invited me for an interview. I met with the Wing Executive Officer, two Public Affairs Officers, and a Public Affairs senior NCO. After the interview I was told they’d like to have me despite being overstaffed.

I sat with the recruiter to discuss some general procedural and administrative questions and was then taken to the Public Affairs office to meet the whole staff. Everyone was nice and told me about their job, the training school, and their lives outside of the Guard. The recruiter took me on a short tour of the base and four hours after arriving, I was heading home feeling great I had made the trip.

Final Decision and Swearing In

Before I got the medical waiver, passed the ASVAB, or was invited to join a unit, it was the Air Force’s decision. Now it was finally my decision.

I confirmed with the recruiter the details of signing the contract and scheduled a date for the oath of enlistment. I met the Public Affairs Officer at the headquarters building conference room and swore my oath of enlistment. I then went to the recruiter’s office to sign the contract. After that it was over to the finance office to get banking and tax paperwork sorted.

Resources

Here are links to a few things I found helpful during this journey. Some of the military blogs were helpful but I also found a lot of relevant information on Reddit.

• How to Get a Medical Waiver to Join the Military (The Military Wallet)

  This is the best article I found about the process of applying for a medical waiver.

• Got a 98 on my ASVAB! Here was my study plan. (Reddit)

  One of the comments in this thread:

  ASVAB scores aren’t really competitive. As long as you meet the minimum score for whatever job/school you want to do, that’s about where the buck stops. It’s not like an ACT where higher scores get you into a “better” version of a school. So studying excessively for a few point increase isn’t really beneficial.

  While this is broadly true, it isn’t absolutely true. In my case I was joining the Air National Guard. In the Guard there has to be a job opening available at the unit you want to join. The only reason I got invited to the 134th was because I both got really good scores and do well in interviews. If I had just squeezed by with a General score of 72, I might have been qualified for the job but I wouldn’t have been invited to join a unit that was 118% staffed.

• VA Disability vs. Reenlisting/commissioning (Reddit)

  The thing I found most helpful in this thread was this:

  1. You can be 100% rated and go in the reserves. You choose to either give up VA pay or reserve pay for the 2 days you work (people choose to give up the lower pay rate for that day)

  2. If you have a rating, DO NOT VOLUNTARILY give up your rating in any way. If you can pass MEPS screening you can go back in. If you go active YOU DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR VA RATING IN ANY WAY.. you notify the VA that you have gone back to active duty and they give you a form to fill out and your pay is suspended until you EAS/retire. At which point you can/will be evaluated again. DO NOT talk to the VA about any of it until you have passed MEPS screening.

  I work for the VA, I’m 100% P&T, and in the reserves currently.

• Air National Guard FAQ
• Glossary of Air Force Acronyms and Terminology

Contact

If it’s not obvious from this article, I am not a recruiter or a doctor. If you email me asking about available jobs, the culture of a unit not my own, whether you will be granted a medical waiver, or anything else that only a recruiter or a doctor could answer, you will be ignored.

If you want to chat about more general things like what it’s like joining the military older than most, feel free to email military@ this domain.