MEPs Fingerprints

[AAC03]

So I have just gotten back from two days of a whole lot of MEPs. Very boring but very necessary. Got through it in one peace. Currently in the state of Connecticut, but I got it done up in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Now I'm going to be up front about it, I lied on the "have you ever been arrested" questions. I was arrested a very long time ago (8th grade, was probably around 13 or 14) for lighting a piece of paper on fire in my school bathroom then immediately kicking it out. Very stupid on my part, I know. Well I was caught and my principal called the cops on me and got me arrested. Got probation for 6 months and a fine and that was that. My probation officer had asked me what I wanted to do when I was older and I told him Marines. I still remember the conversation very clearly, years later (I am now 18) he asked me what was I going to say to the recruiter about ever being arrested. (at the time I didn't know diddly squat about DQs) I had no idea how to respond and I thought it was a trick question so I answered with a very intelligent "Uhhhh..." and he cut me off saying "Don't say anything and tell them you've never been arrested. This whole thing will be off the record and erased after (a certain amount of time, I'm pretty sure he said after I'm done with middle school). So years later, here I am, going through the first steps of my enlistment(hopefully). Did the medical exams fine, asvab fine, and my last step was fingerprints. I was nervous as hell but kept my composure. They ran my prints through a livescan after hours of waiting which after that led to more hours of waiting. I was under the impression that if anything that's considered anything was on my record, it would've popped up then, among my hours of waiting, in which case they would've called me into the office said "Yadda yadda what the hell is this? Why are you wasting our time etc etc" something along those lines. But I have no idea how things work at MEPs and how long it takes for any of that livescan crap to finally come through but I assumed it would've popped up that day. I didn't enlist just yet, as the Marine Corps seems to be downsizing, and getting a lot of applicants but that day at MEPs, it was only me. Right now, I'm placed in a Q&E status (qualified, not enlisted) and am in the process of being sent back up there to actually sign my contract, and swear in. My recruiter called me the next day and told me I qualified.

TL;DR: how long does the fingerprint livescan take for results to come back? Is it the same day you're there, so you're immediately notified if anything comes up there and they halt everything then? My recruiter did call me the next day to ask how it went and told me I basically qualify sooo...

Similar Threads:

• Duck Walk at MEPS question.Temporarily DQ'ed from MEPS. Possible Waiver Approval?
• Duck Walk at MEPS question.Temporarily DQ'ed from MEPS. Possible Waiver Approval?
• Fun with MEPS
• At Meps...
• Meps

[MunkyVsRobot]

I am not sure as to how long the fingerprints take to get back, but that is definitely not a good way to be starting out your career in the Marine Corps.

Wether or not your recruiter told you to lie about it, your recruiter isnt the one who is going to get Red October shoved up his butt, its going to be you who sufferes the consequences.

Side note if it does come back clean and they say you are good to go and you want to apply for a job that requires a clearance or you are attached to a unit where you require a clearance, you are subject to a background investigation. In these investigations they tend to interview those around you family, friends, then friends of those friends im sure they will also go to your school and ask around there and someone is bound to remember that you were arrested and you can logically see where i am going with this.

[AAC03]

I am not sure as to how long the fingerprints take to get back, but that is definitely not a good way to be starting out your career in the Marine Corps.

Wether or not your recruiter told you to lie about it, your recruiter isnt the one who is going to get Red October shoved up his butt, its going to be you who sufferes the consequences.

Side note if it does come back clean and they say you are good to go and you want to apply for a job that requires a clearance or you are attached to a unit where you require a clearance, you are subject to a background investigation. In these investigations they tend to interview those around you family, friends, then friends of those friends im sure they will also go to your school and ask around there and someone is bound to remember that you were arrested and you can logically see where i am going with this.

Yeah I know, but well, technically, I never really thought that I would be lying. I remember my probation officer plainly telling me that I had nothing to worry about, it'd be off my record etc so I thought that it wouldn't be necessary to mention it. My recruiter never told me to lie about anything, just that while at MEPs, it wouldn't be the best time to "remember" if I fell off a bike back in 4th grade and got a minor concussion.

Currently, I want an 03 job (infantry). Not sure if I'd need security clearance for that. But later down the road (if there even will be one) I'm interested in MARSOC. Now that would probably need security clearance.

So far, everything that I've seen on the internet and heard from, is making me believe that I should probably call up my recruiter and mention everything about it. I mean, if you read my post, it's sorta a ridiculous situation. I just lit a damn piece of paper on fire that I immediately stomped out. Would this be an immediate or permanent DQ? Even if it is, I'd rather be DQ'd than have "Dishonorably discharged" on my record. It's been my life long dream of joining the Marine Corps, but I'm not going to risk the rest of my future.

[USMC 2571]

There are 5 types of discharges, including the DD you mentioned, and you would not get that one. Only a general court-martial can "award" that, as they say.

Notify your recruiter, then call or go to that particular courthouse. Go to the clerk-magistrate's office, have them look it up and ask them what the final disposition is.

If it is a dismissal, fine, leave it alone.

If it is not a dismissal, ask them to send that case into the session so you can ask the judge to enter a dismissal because you want to enter the USMC.

Notify your recruiter before you go to or call the courthouse so the scary words "fraudulent enlistment" never come up.
IF the recruiter says anything negative about the old juvenile case, let him know you intend to go to the court to seek a dismissal.

It helps tremendously that it is a juvenile case

If you run into any problems, PM me and I will call the courthouse and find out the exact procedure you need to follow. Do not hire an attorney, you don't need one for this.

[USMC 2571]

First step, tell recruiter.
Second step, find out if that case was dismissed or not

[USMC 2571]

(You know, just as an aside, and if the powers that be here don't like it they can feel free to delete this post)----Our society loves to think it lives in the Age of Tolerance, but the fact is that we tolerate very important things that we should never tolerate, and have zero tolerance for stupid things like a piece of paper on fire in a bathroom, that is stomped out immediately, involving the police and the school and heaven knows who else, maybe the House and Senate if they thought they could notify them.

End of sermon. I have no tolerance for intolerance of minor incidents.

[MunkyVsRobot]

(You know, just as an aside, and if the powers that be here don't like it they can feel free to delete this post)----Our society loves to think it lives in the Age of Tolerance, but the fact is that we tolerate very important things that we should never tolerate, and have zero tolerance for stupid things like a piece of paper on fire in a bathroom, that is stomped out immediately, involving the police and the school and heaven knows who else, maybe the House and Senate if they thought they could notify them.

End of sermon. I have no tolerance for intolerance of minor incidents.

That is a true statement but the fact that he omitted it and said nothing makes it seem suspect. (that is if anything even surfaces about this incident)

Example a CWO i know of recently hit his 20 year mark and is trying to get out and he applied to a police dept they said he was at the top of the list for their recruitment or whatever it is called when you try to become a LEO.

On the application they asked about any drug use or anything like that he wasnt a drug user or anything like that so he said no. So apparently he ended up having to do a poly for this job for some reason or another. He presently holds a pretty high clearance for opsec purposes i will keep everything as anon as possible. Now during polygraphs people usually have one of those coming to god moments where you remember every bad thing you have done or may have done, they asked him if he had ever done any prescription drugs and he had remembered a time almost 17 years ago when someone gave him one of their muscle relaxers because he was having back pain and had to run a PFT.

Needless to say because of those inconsistencies they told him sorry for your luck pal you can try again in about a year.

[USMC 2571]

You're right, that's why I said he has to immediately undo what he did and notify his recruiter before he does anything else at all.


If he notifies, he should be okay, because based on what we heard from him here, the incident, the probation officer's statements etc, I can see where it is almost too minor to mention.

But I agreed that it in fact HAS to be mentioned asap, as the very first step.

[USMC 2571]

And just for anyone else reading this, here is the reasoning behind things like this.

Say there are 500 applicants for 1 job. Any applicant who has anything wrong or suspect in his or her background is naturally less desirable to an employer than all the applicants who have no issues or past problems.

The Corps is downsizing------they can afford to be tremendously selective these days. I quit high school and joined. The Corps would never allow that today. As they downsize they tighten standards and so it is not easy to enlist as it is.
So if you have anything to tell the recruiter, be up front about it.

[AAC03]

I just got off the phone with my recruiter, and told him just about everything that had to do with it. He said that I should've told him when he very first asked, but that I'm not automatically DQ'd and that he'll fix this(no idea if it's actually up to him). He told me just about the same thing you did USMC2571, to try and get any records of the case, weather I completed all the requirements(which was probation for 6 months, a fine, and I believe a little bit of community service. Helped some firefighters around their station) that it'll only help my case. We're going to schedule a date for me to come in and give a written statement of everything, pretty much the same thing I told him about the incident.

I got charged with reckless endangerment and reckless burning, if that clears up anything. But yeah, I was under the impression that I wasn't really even lying. My Probation Officer told me that it would be off my record by the time I went to enlist so I'd have nothing to worry about, which led me to believe that I wouldn't really even be lying. My recruiter replied to me with a very calm "Your probation officer was a ****ing idiot, and should be fired." Now that made me laugh, but yeah, my recruiter telling me that this won't DQ me and we can take care of it takes a huge load of pressure off me, so I can actually enlist with a clear conscious and free of worry. I'm just wishing now that I told him a while back and already had this taken care of.

[AAC03]

And just for anyone else reading this, here is the reasoning behind things like this.

Say there are 500 applicants for 1 job. Any applicant who has anything wrong or suspect in his or her background is naturally less desirable to an employer than all the applicants who have no issues or past problems.

The Corps is downsizing------they can afford to be tremendously selective these days. I quit high school and joined. The Corps would never allow that today. As they downsize they tighten standards and so it is not easy to enlist as it is.
So if you have anything to tell the recruiter, be up front about it.

Yeah I've been hearing all too much that the Marine Corps is currently downsizing, as we're not technically in war time. But yeah, even the Police Officer who was driving me down to the station to get everything done with, was cracking jokes about the whole incident. In truth, nothing really even had to happen. I lit the piece of paper inside the bathroom of my school, again, I immediately stomped it out afterwards, but when I was caught, my principal thought it'd be fit to have me arrested I guess. Just about everyone that I've encountered and talked to that pertained to the case (Probation officer, lawyer, Police officers etc) have all thought that the case was entirely stupid.

Meanwhile, I know kids that go to parties, get **** drunk with weed in the car, try to drive home, get pulled over, and absolutely nothing ends up happening to them. Cop just tells them to hurry up and get home. Ridiculous. Well, life isn't fair at all, I guess.

Also, the other funny thing is I was in the bathroom with two other kids, one who had no idea what I was doing (but has kinda a rep for hanging with the wrong crowd and is hispanic, myself also being Brazilian but born here) and was just washing his hands, and one who gave me the piece of paper to light (doesn't have a bad rep, is caucasian). Well, the kid who had no idea what was going on, got suspended for 10 days. The kid that gave me the paper, had nothing done to him. I don't typically bring out the race card, but many people thought that what my principal did, was out of racial/ethnic prejudice. I never really gave any thought to it, I just thought she was a *****.

[USMC 2571]

I hear you---hopefully it will be all set---but call the courthouse or go there, even better, and find out precisely where it stands and what is says, because many things that are "supposed" to end up dismissed end up staying "open" and could even involve an outstanding and active warrant, so things are not always what they seem in criminal law.

Find out what the final dispo is on that case and let us know, or via PM?
I can walk you through this whole thing.

[AAC03]

I hear you---hopefully it will be all set---but call the courthouse or go there, even better, and find out precisely where it stands and what is says, because many things that are "supposed" to end up dismissed end up staying "open" and could even involve an outstanding and active warrant, so things are not always what they seem in criminal law.

Find out what the final dispo is on that case and let us know, or via PM?
I can walk you through this whole thing.

I'll definitely let you know what happens and thanks for all the help and best wishes. Hopefully I can get this all sorted out, and get on the road to a long career in the Marine Corps.