I enlisted in the Marine corps on July 1st 2009. Thats when I depd in. I will be in the delayed entry program until June 28 2010 and than I will go to Parris Island South Caralina for boot camp. Sgt. Hazen is the recuiter who sent me to meps so he is the one who gets the credit for me joining but he and Sgt. Rojas soon swapped offices after I joined so it would be easier for Sgt. Rojas to spend time with his family. So Sgt. Rojas is running the pool functions that I go to every thursday and is the recruiter I have to call every tuesday. Once a week all of Sgt. Rojas' poolies get together with him and we usually do an initial strength test, we run a mile and a half do chin ups and crunches. I love being in the dep. I look forward to thursdays. When I run the mile and a half I feel tired and I want to give up but when I finnish it I feel great especially when I get a better time than I did during the previous run. The other poolies are great we're always joking with each other and having a good time, we look out for each other.
For example I remember when I went to M.E.P.S to take the ASVABs and a physical to see If I was good enough for the Marines I had already taken the ASVABs and was chilling at the hotel with Jason and Lincoln playing video games and stuff when I got a sudden wave of nervousness, I was thinking "I've gotta go back to M.E.P.S tommorow morning for the physical, what if they think I'm not good enough? What if they do think I'm good enough and I fail training? What if I die in combat?" Sgt. Hazen had told me that if I needed to I could call him any time so I borrowed Lincolns cell phone and called Sgt. Hazen from my hotel room I told him I was scared, he chuckeld than told me that every poolie has gone through this that I'm taking the biggest step of my lif and that getting scared is normal, he told me that when he was a poolie he got scared, he told me to just yell fuck that when I get scared and than he said go talk to Burges and Weiss, tell them what you're feeling I garentee you that they've gone through this, you guys aren't Marines yet but we're still brothers and we look out for each other. So I went and talked to Jason and Lincoln and they were able to help me.
On the second saterday of each month Gunny Ski has a pool function and every poolie I think i the state goes to it, I've only been in the dep long enough to go to two of his pool functions, the first one I went to of his we did an IST and the second one we hiked up a mountain and that was so much fun. We all made sure that nobody would slip and fall and joked about what we would do if someone did. When we got to the top of the mountain we all couldn't help but stop and stare, the view was amazing. We sat down and had our lunches than the recruiters gave us a few classes before we headed back down. I don't think I'll ever forget that day.