At what point did you feel like you were finally a service member? (when did it finally "click")?

Funny you should ask. I can remember the exact moment I realized I was in the Army, really a part of it. I can still see the room and the people around me. Reception Center, Fort Jackson, SC. We were ushered into a large hall filled with old fashioned school desks, the wooden kind with a arm rest and writing surface on the right hand side. There was a stack of forms and two No 2 pencils bound with a rubber band on each desk. We were told to stand by one and keep our hands in our pockets. When every desk was "occupied" a sergeant instructed us to do nothing until he told us. When told, we were to place the forms on the shelf below the seat and... some people began to reach and quickly wished they hadn't. ...and place the two pencils on the desk top, then put our hands back in our pockets. Step by agonizing step we were told to remove our hands from our pockets, sit down, remove the top form, a blue card, and the top form only from the stack and place it in front of us, but not touch a pencil. Some got the card part correct and some touched a pencil and wished they hadn't. We were then instructed to fill in the first few items, name, home town address, city, state, and zip only. Every instruction was repeated three times and accompanied with dire warnings. To be honest, i was getting angry. What idiot could fill out a simple form. Well, as it turned out I was sitting in a room full of them. When told to enter our names I began writing mine until I became aware of the person to my right. He was looking at what I was doing. For all I know, there may have been two of us with the same info that day. The man to my left had his hand in the air. Yep, that's the moment when I realized not only that I was in the Army, but also that I was an idiot.

When a bunch of old crusty SFCs training us at Fort Lewis WA.said "your INFANTRY now and you will be INFANTRY till the day you die,"I am almost 71 years old and I remember that day as if it was yesterday.

I felt like it the very second that they started shaving off all of my hair.