Ok, so it’s...definitely creative, but kind of....evil? Maybe? I’m still utterly fascinated from how close I came to actually opening this door.

Thread. https://twitter.com/stevenspohn/status/1360043172928356354

So in High School I was undiagnosed ADHD and an underachiever. I had a 2.7 GPA but a 1240 SAT. So I knew I had to change so habits before going off to college but also didn’t want to waste too much time. The answer? The Army Reserves!

In the USAR, you’re Active Duty regular Army for as long as your training. Then you get attached to a Reserve Unit near where you live. How long is training? Well it depends.

Boot Camp (Basic Skills Training) is most times 8 weeks (circa 1996) plus 5 days for Reception Battalion. But your Advanced Individualized Training (AIT, basically your job training) varies based on the job.

Let’s say you’re a laundry washer, that’s like 5 weeks. But some jobs that are more technical, take longer. A Combat Engineer, for instance, is 14 weeks.

My objective was to get through Boot and AIT in less than a school year. I wanted a gap year to be a soldier, learn some discipline, and get access to some GI Bill money. I didn’t really care what I did, as long as it wasn’t Tactical Moose Shit Dispenser, or something.

So when you join, you take this looooong written test called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). Then you go to a place called Miltary Entrance Processing Station, where you get a physical and review your ASVAB score with a career counselor.

So I go in and sit down and there’s a Sergeant who’s bored as FUUUUCK. I’m like the 50th dude he’s seen before 2pm that day. Keep in mind you don’t get a lot of time to make your choice. Anyway, this E5 types into his computer, brings up my file, and he stops. Like, dead stop

There’s a pause. I ask what’s going on. He explains that everyone gets the top 25 Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) that they are best suited for in order from best fit to not as good, and that mine was....not something he sees often.

He pulls a BIG book from his desk and starts thumbing through it, reading it in silence for a minute before turning it around and showing me what the ASVAB said I was best suited for: https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/signal-intelligence/languages-code/37f-psychological-operations-specialist.html

PsyOp is better known now because of dumbass conspiracy theorists who think they’re too clever by half. But back then I didn’t know what this meant. I asked what they did, and Sergeant replied, “Foreign Misinformation, leaflet drops, false broadcasts, propaganda.”

I was hoping for like, Signal Corps. I read more and I gotta say....it sounded fucking bad ass. AND there was a 5k signing bonus. I asked how long training was, figuring it would be like 15-20 weeks.

“20 Weeks combined Boot and AIT. It’s called OSUT training. Then 3 weeks of Airborne School, then 10 days of PsyOp certification, then security clearance, then Specialization Course, which could be 1-5 months, then 11 weeks of language school, THEN you get to go home.”

That’s like, almost two years. It sounded cooler than anything I had done in my life, but I also wasn’t sure I even wanted to do it. But DAMN was I curious. I sat there thinking for minute.

“Ok, have you chosen?” the E5 said.

“WHAT!!?!?”

I was told every soldier gets TEN MINUTES to choose and I was at minute 5.

We started going through the rest of my list. I knew that if I didn’t find something that wrapped up in less than 10 months in the next 5 minutes, I was absolutely going to choose PsyOps.

Which would have been a HELL of a thing to explain to my Mom and Dad who were picking me up in an hour, let alone all my friends and my girlfriend at the time.

Then, at choice 17, it sat:
(In 1996, it was 55B) https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/support-logistics/transportation-inventory/89b-ammunition-specialist.html

My eyes glazed over all the descriptions about “management, storage, accounting,” and skipped right to this part:

The fact that training was only 10 weeks long was both reassuring and kind of terrifying. But, it was enough justification to pick that one over a completely life altering, albeit cool, sounding job.

Fast forward 10 months and I’m sitting in a classroom learning about all the ways Sarin Gas will completely fuck you up, and I was definitely wishing that I was instead graduating from Jump School while learning Korean.

So yeah, I became an Explosive Ammo nerd INSTEAD of overthrowing some countries government with subliminal messages inside a reality show.

Fast forward to 2021, and I work in interactive media where I do presentations on how lighting can make someone seem friendlier, and espousing about Parasocial Contact Theory and I ask you: would I really have ended up THAT different?

Post Script: I got this thirsty AF photo out of it a few months later when my unit got deployed to blow up some Vietnam Era HE Carpet Bombs.