How you feeling Soldier? Good enough!

Almost six years ago I took my then 41 year old body down to the Federal Office Building in downtown Albany and took a physical in order to qualify for the Army.  I was with of group of about 30, 18 to 24 year olds who were trying to do the same thing.  First was the blood pressure---which came back a bit high--but the guy gave it a second time and it was better.  Next came my height weight.  My max weight allowance that day was 177 pounds...and I had starved and exercise myself nearly to death just to get down to that weight.  I stepped on the scale and the scale read....177!  There was a vision and a hearing test and those all went well then came the ultimate physical test for me...the infamous duck walk test.  There I was --in my underware--with 30 young bodies--trying in vain to do this damn duck walk.  The kids--they did just fine.  But me, I couldn't figure the thing out.  The guy running the show asked me to do it over and over.  "You are not making it if you can't do the duck walk!", he shouted.  All eyes were on me as I was doing it...or trying to do it.  Very humbling and embarrassing.  "God," I thought, "I lost all this weight and worked so hard just to get here and fail because of some stupid fucking DUCK WALK!!!"  Finally, I did a very half assed attempt and the guy got frustrated and said he hoped I wasn't going infantry and he let me through.  Whew!  After that some 90 year old doctor stuck a cold finger up my butt to cap the day off--which somehow seemed less uncomfortably and embarrassing than the duck walk incident.  Fast forward to today.  Today was my final SRP--soldier readiness processing--before my deployment later this month.  I always hate getting physicals or going to the doctor.  I always think their gonna find a tumor or something.  But today--it was easy.  Blood pressure good...vision good...hearing good...overweight yes but all and all...fully deployable.  So now, there is nothing holding me back.  I have less than three weeks of civilian life left.  Then its goodbye Albany and hello Camp Shelby Mississippi.  Than it's on to the Sandbox!