I finally swore in thursday to the WI army national guard, just got back from drill for the weekend.

A few bits of advice from one who's BTDT.
Can the 'death before dishonor' crap.  It's tired and will do nothing but label you a tool to DS's and instructors.
Drill as much as you possibly can with your unit instead of RSP.  The REMFs at RSP can offer you very little valuable insight and most haven't seen a single deployment as those administrator positions are title 72 AGR.
Cross train. If you're not infantry (well, you're not sh!t, but that's a different story) request to transfer to an infantry unit.  You may get stuck in grade for a little while, but you'll almost immediately get your 11B4A if the 1Sgt is half awake.
Use your MGIB-SR while you're in, remember it doesn't cover after ETS like AD.

If you have any specific Q's PM me, I did a fair amount of time as a recruiting assistant in the guard and can provide some insight other Soldiers here might not possess.  (BTW, Soldiers is ALWAYS capitalized and no matter what you may hear or think, you're not a Soldier until your DS says)

Quote from: nikfleisch on March 20, 2011, 01:24:14 PM
I finally swore in thursday to the WI army national guard, just got back from drill for the weekend.

awesomesauce man 

Congratulations on your enlistment.  Thank you for your service.

- Porkchop

Sh!t, sorry, all the negative and I forgot to say: Congrats! 

Congratulations and thank you.  I've been trying to get back into the military ever since I was medically discharged from the Air Force 8 years ago.  At this point, I've been turned down by every branch...active, reserve, and Guard...officer and elisted.

you must be telling them to much... whats wrong w you?

Had a blood disorder; lack of platelets. Been fine for the last 8 years, my doc has given me a clean bill of health...but the MEPS docs think they're smarter than a guy who's been specializing in hematology for the last 26 years, and they won't even let me come up for an examination. They look at my file and toss it aside.

Congrats and thanks for your impending service.

i hate the meps doctors, there a bunch of old guys lol

Quote from: murf425 on March 21, 2011, 01:57:23 PM
Had a blood disorder; lack of platelets. Been fine for the last 8 years, my doc has given me a clean bill of health...but the MEPS docs think they're smarter than a guy who's been specializing in hematology for the last 26 years, and they won't even let me come up for an examination. They look at my file and toss it aside.

No offense to anyone who may be one, but MEPS docs are absolute bottom of the barrel most of the time.  The docs I dealt with were either senile or barely spoke english.  Is it possible for you to try another MEPS?  Where I used to RA from, we had two fairly equidistant and would schedule candidates accordingly (one would let a lot more medical pass through, the other would let a lot more MT issues through)

Quote from: spc on March 21, 2011, 06:02:48 PM
Is it possible for you to try another MEPS?

That's pretty much what I've been doing for the last 3 years; going back about every 6 months, submitting a new waiver request, and hoping that it comes across the desk of the one doctor who'll approve it.  So far, no joy.

To which stations have you sent waivers? 
I know we worked with a kid a few states over once for a similar case, might be worth contacting a recruiter a few states over that might be compassionate to your problems.

Ironically it was those docs that caught my genetic heart problem. Not the primary or ER docs who thought my chest pain was anxiety related. of course Navy docs could be different. Which if they hadn't caught it I could have had an arrythmia in basic and not be here to tell this story. But, I do remember being pissed I scored a 93 cumulative on ASVAB scoring off the charts in Sciences and coding. They offered me OCS based on tests then Meps and dropped me like a bad habit.

Mary