I was trying to add this comment when the site was so rudely taken down for maintenance...

And my story isn't much different than yours. I aced (top 2%) the ASVAB in HS (substitute Jr. Year for standardized test) and recruiters were swarming me. The Navy wanted me for nukes really badly but I didn't want to glow in the dark, the Army just wanted me, but Dad was in the Army and warned against it, that left the Air Force and Marines.

The audition for the Air Force was basically send them a tape and they'd get back to you. If they liked you, they'd eventually send a recruiter. The Marine recruiter actually came by the school and tracked me down because of my ASVAB scores. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him Band (I was the hot shit Sax and Tuba - yes tuba player in my HS at the time). So they sent the big cheese Major down from HQMC to audition me (and about 5 other people). I figured I'd do it to get a good critique of my solos prior to the big three state contest. I auditioned on sax an tuba.. two days later the recruiter said the wanted me on sax so if I'd sign on the dotted line...

I was 18, so my parents didn't have to sign for me and I wanted out of the little town where I grew up and away from the 'rents. I went delayed entry and one month after graduation I found myself at MCRD San Diego where I should have washed out because I so totally sucked at PT. I was a skinny little thing with no upper body strength and the first person ever put in Physical Conditioning Platoon for being too thin (I weighed less than 120 lbs). I have this fear of heights so they had to peel me off of the A-frame on the confidence course and I had tendinitis in both ankles throughout most of basic. Still I kept acing all of the tests they had me take and the company commander kept calling me the egghead.

Towards the end of basic, they pulled about 10 of us aside, told us we were special and that if we wanted we could change our contracts to "open" and be placed into other fields. I was offered Presidential Duty (Camp David only because I was too short for the White House - I'm under 5'10"), Marine Enlisted Commissioning Program (where they send you to college), Foreign Language School (they specifically mentioned learning Russian), or Military Intelligence. No explanation as to the perks or implications of doing it, they just said I had 5 minutes to make a decision. I opted to stay right where I was, in the band, kicking back, growing my hair, and playing my sax.

The USMC had other plans for me. The School of Music at the time was located at the same base the MI (military intelligence) school was (and may still be). I guess they figured I wouldn't notice the change in MOS to MI (my recruiter told me what it would be and I had it memorized), but I did and made them correct it.

My experiences at the SOM were not that different from yours and I think they were trying to get me to fail out so they could put me in MI. I had a jerk of a private teacher who would leave the room during my lesson and who totally screwed with my technique (my Senior solo at the end of year concert was Flight of the Bumblebee so I knew how to play the horn - I was crazy enough to play it on Baritone Sax). I barely made it through the first audition test, and I told my instructor if I didn't make the second one I was going to have his ass on a platter for being such a sucky teacher (dereliction of duty for leaving the room during my lessons). I paid for private lessons from a Chief Petty Officer (another teacher at the school) during the weekends and he got me back on track. They made me play crazy stuff they usually made the Advanced Course students play but I made it through.

I spent time in the Parris Island and Hawaii bands but didn't re-enlist because I had come out about six months before the end of my contract and well, being gay wasn't exactly in line with a military career even though pretty much everyone in the band was cool with it. The real reason I got out was because I made a horrible Marine. I questioned everything and had a hard time dealing with the whole blind obedience to orders thing. I was constantly in trouble for that and more than once I stood up to the asshole drum major when he was on a rampage.

I was lucky though, while I "saw" combat from a distance in the Korean DMZ - I was surprised they were still shooting at each other some 30 years after the "end" of the Korean War, I wasn't directly in the line of fire as our combat mission at the time was to be security for the General and he tended to stay a safe distance away from anything pointed at us. It was really boring walking the perimeter of the camp. We weren't a heavy machine gun unit though, although that's what I did (we did not go to combat school at the time). I didn't mind so much because I rarely had to carry the damn thing. I got to ride in the jeep and pack a .45 when we trained or carried a shotgun while on patrol, which I almost had to use once in Hawaii.

Oh, and the Air Force? They finally got around to listening to my audition tape almost a year after I had already enlisted in the Marines. When the recruiter stopped by to tell me they wanted me I was already in the Armed Forces School of Music (a.k.a. the School of Matrimony).

Congrats on the rescue. It brought back memories, some fun, some not so fun.