When One Joins The US Armed Forced...

Factual Questions
21

As others have said, they do not take anybody. The Navy didn’t take me, because I was a member of a very left wing political party for awhile and I was trying to secure a linguist position. All the recruiters told me it wouldn’t be a problem but the security LT at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Something, where they give you the ASVAB and check your health, urine, blood, etc.) told me it was a problem. He checked with superiors and they couldn’t take me for that position. He said I might be able to get a much less sensitive position but that it wasn’t guaranteed and I never tried, so I don’t know about that.

I have given some thought to trying to get a JAG position after law school, but I won’t be holding my breath.

So…yeah. This is just another reiteration of how they won’t take anyone. I even had the highest ASVAB score at MEPS that day and they wouldn’t take me, so yeah.

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The Military Entrance Processing Station

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IIRC, when my sister was applying to the Air Force Academy, she had to be fingerprinted, presumably to be cross-checked with whatever databases. She also (I think) had to go to the police station and get them to write a letter or something saying that she’d never been arrested in that jurisdiction and they basically had no record of her being a troublemaker.

They did not, to my great disappointment, come looking for people to reveal her dirty secrets.