I scored a 142, and I gotta say, I was given royal treatment. For starters, I weighed less than 100 pounds when I walked into the recruiting office. Recruiter didn't even look interested until I took his little intro test, and then he took over. He fed me meals, he explained how to slouch off two inches, told me not to shit for a week before my second weigh-in (failed the first one). It's damn hard not to shit for a week, let me tell you. Remember that South Park episode with the giant turd? Well, mine was like 7 feet long and wouldn't flush, when I finally took a shit after successfully getting weighed in. They took me in front of 200 people waiting in line to pick their MOS and let me choose mine first. Even in my duty assignments, that score followed me around. I spent an unusual amount of time in Honor Guard doing funerals for an extra $260/day. When I wanted to go back to Grenada, I was the only one allowed to go back a second time. When I arrived at Fort Huachuca, the inprocessing guy saw my score and immediately assigned me to his unit. It was a burden in some ways, and sometimes I wonder if I might not have had a better experience if I'd played at least a little dumb.
So yeah, that is pretty much how it seemed to work. Give the high scoring folks whatever they want, give the average folks and the rest whatever was left. I didn't think that was actually right, but I'm not one to cause trouble, so I just did what I was told, went to the front, and picked what I wanted.
Where we are failing our soldiers today is in treatment for PTSD. They don't have enough counselors to handle the load, so our soldiers aren't getting the care they need, and a lot are having problems. Ironically, I've suffered from PTSD since I was a child, but since the violent events that caused my PTSD happened in childhood, before I was a soldier, I'm not eligible for any treatment via the VA. I doubt they could do much for me anyway -- once you've survived with PTSD for more than 30 years, you've obviously figured out how to make life work. I'd be scared to change anything at this point, as that might make things worse, and I've adapted; it's a part of who I am now, I'm just one hypervigilant mofo.
WHOEVER the next president is, I hope he realizes how badly our soldiers have suffered and are suffering. They deserve better. We owe them more.