FAQ: What will happen when my new recruit reports for duty?

[Arwen]

UPDATED FEB 2013

The day before your recruit is due to ship out s/he will report to his/her recruiter's office, for yet another drug test, weigh-in, and another round of paperwork. Then the recruiter will drive him/her to a hotel near MEPS, where recruits get a meal ticket and a room. They cannot have ANYONE in their rooms, even parents/spouse/children, and must be in that room by curfew. In many places they are told they may not leave the hotel, even to have a last dinner with the family, but there is a lounge/restaurant at most hotels used by MEPS to house incoming recruits.

In the morning all recruits at MEPS (all services) will be picked up at about 5:30 am, either by a bus/van if there are a lot of them, or by their recruiter, and taken to MEPS.

When s/he arrives at MEPS he/she will take a final physical exam, another weigh-in and drug test, then wait to be called by a processing clerk. When recruits finally get their turn at the desk, they provide IDs once again, sign a thick packet of papers, then sit in a waiting area to wait for all recruits to finish.

When everyone is finished with paperwork (at this point recruits are mixed - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard), they are all taken to a special room where they will be sworn in. This can take place anytime between about 9 a.m. and noon. If family members are waiting in the MEPS waiting room, they can be there for this part. They often do two ceremonies, one ending with "So help me God" and one finishing with "I do so affirm," as preferred by each recruit. It's a very crowded little room, with almost no space for an audience, so pictures are difficult. Many MEPS officers, who lead the oath, will recreate this ceremony with individual recruits for family members to take pictures.

Then the recruits go back to the office, each is given their file, recruits are separated into small groups according to their service/destination and given meal vouchers to eat at the airport. One recruit will be put "in charge" of the group. They will be loaded onto a van, charter bus or are given subway/train tickets to the airport. At this point they will be expected to stay with the group but are not supervised.

You CAN go to the airport (separately) to meet your recruit before he or she leaves. You may be able to get a gate pass to sit with your recruit at the USO or the gate if there is time before the flight. A better option is to make sure your recruit has his/her cell phone to call and chat while waiting. They cannot use their phone at MEPS or on the plane, but they can call from both the originating airport and the Chicago airport.

When your recruit arrives at the Chicago airport, they can take time to get a meal if it's not already really late. They should make it a big meal with a caffeine or energy drink - they have a long night ahead of them.  Then they report to the airport USO office, where they wait for a bus to pick up them up and take them to RTC.

Once they step on the bus they must turn their cell phone off. Those who have cell phones will get to make a 10 second call from their phones a few hours later, it could be 5 p.m. or 1 a.m., depending on how late their flight gets in. Within an hour of that call, the recruits put their phones in a box with all of their other belongings (even their underwear!) to ship home. Usually the battery is put in one shoe and the phone in the other.

For more information about what happens next, you should watch the video Navy Racks: Boot Camp. It's a little bit dated, the uniforms are different now - but it gives an excellent overview of what their experience will be.

[ProudNavyMom]

It would be so nice to have this information prior to them leaving......my son left this past Wednesday and all of this information would have been so nice to have before now! Why dont recruiters provide this information?

 

[Arwen]

Some recruiters don't want the recruits to know anything that is about to happen. They didn't have the information and went in scared and consider the experience of going in blind and being constantly confused to be a rite of passage. Others are simply lazy, or they are so accustomed to the routine they don't really understand that this is information other people might want to know. In the case of my older son's recruiter, he simply didn't know what happens after they leave MEPS - it wasn't part of their training or his experience, and he either forgot what happened when he joined, or assumed it changed and didn't want to take the chance of passing on bad information. In fact, he had never been to Great Lakes before - he was one of the final San Diego boot camp groups.

You will also find that every once in a while a detail or two will change, or one MEPS allows something that others do not, or one MEPS will not allow something that others do. When I learn of these changes I try to update my FAQs.

[Alison(LS A school)]

Awesome info....thanks for sharing. What's your thought if the recruiter says parents are not to go to te airport. Should I just comply or would it be disrespectful to question him? I wouldn't want to be inappropriate or embarrass my son but I really want to be at the airport.

[Arwen]

There's no actual rule against it - the airport is a public place and they can't stop you. However, the Navy would like to see how the recruits perform when they're completely on their own. It's a test, letting them get from point A to point B and making the right decisions without Navy or the parents "guiding them." Can they do it on their own?

They much prefer if parents cut the ties at MEPS - but their ideal is if your goodbyes are said at the recruiting station the day before. A lot of these recruits have been raised by overprotective parents and have little ability to function on their own, and the Navy wants to get the process to a completely independent sailor to be started as early as possible.

[Arwen]

Updated to reflect changes in 2013