One of my favorite stories from this summer happened when we all went to visit the Navy recruiter so Carter could register to enlist. I never imagined that as Josh and I were exiting military life, one of ours would be entering. And that it would be Carter? No way. #leastlikely
I thought Caleb might go the military route, with his love of physical challenges and Survivor spirit. But my work smarter, not harder child has decided that it’s smarter to get paid to do a job and learn a skill than to pay someone else to go to more school. And that sounds pretty brilliant.
He’s probably right. I think alternative education/non-traditional college is the smart choice these days. Our plan for our kids is to spend educational dollars wisely to get them marketable job skills and experience so they can be productive adults. There is no dream college that will magically set someone up for success. Too many kids graduate with a degree that requires more money and more school to do anything (Political Science? English? What job does that get you?**) and have dug themselves a student loan hole that leaves them a decade behind when it comes to saving/investing/becoming financially independent.
** those are our degrees. Bless us. I should have gone into nursing or accounting or something practical. Just because it worked out for us doesn’t mean we would make the same choices again.
I thought this summer would be a time for Carter to meet with the recruiter, get a feel for what the process would be to enlist after he graduates . . . just a feeling out period. Nope, he found out from the recruiter that he could get an assigned job and boot camp date NOW, and then he’d be all set to go after graduation. So we jumped into a mess of paperwork, trying to remember all of our old addresses, personal contacts from each place we’ve lived, countries visited, and medical history. Just what I wanted to do in the last 2 weeks of summer.
The big event for us was taking him to the recruiter office, signing permission for him to enlist (since he’s under 18), and spending several hours helping him fill out his medical history and other paperwork.
While we were there his recruiter gave him a 3 page medical questionnaire and instructed him: “don’t mark anything yes without checking with me first.” Basically a yes is a red flag for a medical issue that could possibly disqualify someone from service and because it’s government paperwork, any mistake means you have to start over and fill the entire thing out again.
Since Carter is virtually an adult, I’ve been letting him drive this entire process, so he starts working while I kick back. At the very first question he hesitates and reads aloud, “Do you have double vision? . . . that’s a ‘yes,’ right?”
Horrified, I blurt back, “NO!” He’s all, “Isn’t it asking if I can see out of both eyes?” Ahhhh, no baby. I guess I can understand your confusion . . .
The recruiter, Josh, and I all laugh and laugh and laugh some more and maybe Carter wasn’t laughing because he had 3 more pages of double column medical questions and at this rate he was never going to get out of there and to In N Out for lunch.
So I did the mom thing and leaned over his shoulder and prompted, “No, no, definitely No (are you pregnant?), and more noes until he got the hang of it.
A week later he left with the recruiter for San Jose where he spent the night with other recruits-to-be and went through MEPS (military in processing) where they do all the vision, hearing, drug testing and medical screening and he made it 99.8% of the way through. He was one step away from meeting with the career counselor, choosing a military rate (job) and a boot camp date when the doctor looked at his knee and saw this:
Yep, a few warty looking bumps can derail/postpone your military career. The doc said before he could be cleared Carter has to see a dermatologist and have them sign off on his skin condition. (Basically he needs to get rid of them.) Currently he’s burning them off with compound W and when our residence visas get approved he’ll take care of that.
Hopefully.
