[quote=@The Dow Dragon]
I'm back! It was quite a trip. I rode with 3 other guys to Boise, where we stayed the night in a swanky hotel. Then we got up at 0500 and sat in a government building for 7 hours doing all sorts of stuff then we rode 3 hours back home.

But it was worth it, I'm a Marine Corps Poolee (Trainee) now, I ship out August of next year.
[/quote]

First and foremost, I salute our willingness to enter a job with so much tension and strife at the moment.

Second, My dad worked for the VA for over ten years and the first piece of advice I can give you is this: Get a full physical, hearing, vision, psych evaluation, MRI's, EVERYTHING! Put that in a safe deposit box or with a family member for safe keeping. When you get done with boot camp, get a second full evaluation, save that one too. Every time you get a chance, say every six months, get another evaluation done OUTSIDE of the military and send it to your safe place. They will alter files and films to avoid any evidence for disability ratings.

Third, Take the worst places on their list first: 3 mile island, antarctica, things like that. You wan to take the bad places now as a newbie so that your rotations will put you in better places instead of getting good places to start and ending your tour in the horrible places. If you want to go to europe (not reccomended with the international tensions) then you want to be stationed on the east coast for training. If you want to see the pacific and asia then you need to train in california and washington.