A step through the doors of the Military Entrance Processing Station here blows away the myths that the military is struggling to get enough recruits, dropping its standards to get those it does, or glossing over the fact that it’s recruiting into a wartime force.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Booker, a Navy recruiter, leads two recruits into the Baltimore Military Entrance Processing Station. The station processes nearly 8,000 recruits a year for all military services. July 31 was the last day of a month in which all the services had already met their quotas for recruits. It was a relatively slow day at the station — one of 65 dotting the country. Yet the station buzzed with activity as 102 men and women processed through en route to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
“It’s pretty quiet today, but we’re always busy,” Station Commander Army Lt. Col. Robert Larsen said. “People come in and are always shocked to see how many people are processing into the military. And what amazes them most is the fact that we do this every single day.”
The military has gone through a 13-month stretch during which every service consistently met its active-duty recruiting goals. There’s never a down day at the station, especially during the busy summer season. Over the course of fiscal 2006, the Baltimore station will send almost 8,000 new members to their entry-level military training.
The station sends soldiers, the largest group processed, to basic training at forts Leonard Wood, Mo.; Benning, Ga.; Jackson, S.C.; Knox, Ky.; or Sill, Okla. Sailors, the second-largest group, all go to boot camp at Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Ill. Marines recruits from the station go to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. Airmen will go to the Basic Military Training course at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Coast Guardsmen, the smallest group to process through the MEPS station, go to Training Center Cape May, N.J.
But before they can start their training, all recruits process through a MEPS station. The Baltimore station, one of the three busiest in the country, serves as the link between the military and recruits from Maryland, the District of Columbia and parts of Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. Recruits enter as civilians and leave as new members of the armed forces who have signed their military contracts and taken the oath of enlistment.
Recruits arrive at the station before 5:30 a.m. to begin a flurry of tests — a medical exam, drug test and HIV test, among them — to ensure they’re fit for duty. Another test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, ensures they meet the military’s aptitude standards.
Military-wide, more than 60 percent of all recruits come from the top half of the aptitude categories, and more than 90 percent are high school graduates, David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said during a Pentagon news conference in July.
“Typically, we see an above-average high school graduate” processing through the Baltimore MEPS, Larsen said.
Army Master Sgt. Mark Schoeppner, an Army liaison with the station, bristles at talk that military standards have dipped. “There’s a perception that we will allow anybody in, and that’s absolutely wrong,” he said.
Schoeppner pointed to big improvements he’s seen in the force during his 19 and a half years in the military.
“It’s way better than when I came in, and I feel very comfortable sleeping at night, knowing that we have not lower