On July 1, the Department of Defense’s jointly-staffed United States Military Entrance Processing Command celebrates 40 years of supporting the nation’s All-Volunteer Force.

Established in 1976 at Fort Sheridan, by Department of the Army General Order Number 7, the United States Military Enlistment Processing Command, USMEPCOM, was created from existing elements and personnel assigned to the United States Army Recruiting Command. It was re-designated United States Military Entrance Processing Command in 1983.

Throughout its 40-year existence, the Command has ensured millions of applicants for enlistment in the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard met, and continue to meet, established Department of Defense and service aptitude, medical, and conduct standards.

Early in its existence, USMEPCOM also assumed responsibility for the administration of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery-based Student Testing Program in the nation’s high schools and post-secondary institutions.

The organization was born in a turbulent time for the armed forces. The Cold War was at its height. The last remaining American personnel were evacuated from Saigon in April of the previous year. The All-Volunteer Force, created just three years before, was still in its infancy. A substantial post-Vietnam drawdown of U.S. troop strength was in progress.

After a phased gestation and adjustment period between 1976 and 1979, during which time the Command still fell under the umbrella of the Army recruiting command, USMEPCOM became an independent Department of Defense organization in 1979. In 1982, the Headquarters moved from Fort Sheridan to its present location at Naval Station Great Lakes.

The fledgling command performed its mission from its first day onward at 66 original Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Stations or AFEES, plus two substations in Guam and Anchorage. Along their institutional green walls, and down their linoleum covered floors, hallway-long red, blue, yellow, and green stripes were painted as guides for the potential recruits to follow from point to point along their pre-enlistment journey. The furniture was government-issue grey steel. The chatter of IBM Selectric typewriters and the not infrequent sergeant’s bark provided the sound track.

During the decade of the 1980s the assembly-line approach to enlistment processing was discarded in favor of what the Command refers to as Red Carpet Treatment. Since the services now relied exclusively on volunteers who had other options in terms of post-high school education and employment, procedures were implemented to make efficiency, courtesy and personalized service the watchword. Carpet was indeed laid on station floors, government-issue furniture was out, walls were more appealingly decorated. The sergeant ceased his bark.

Anticipation of and response to change has been at the center of the Command’s focus from its inception. Over the past 40 years, numerous stations have closed, opened or relocated, workload levels fluctuate, as have staff composition, staffing levels, and perhaps most significantly, technology.

The Command currently operates 65 stations which were renamed Military Entrance Processing Stations or MEPS, in 1981. Only four still exist in their original locations: Fargo, N.D, established in 1961; New York City, established in 1965; Montgomery, Ala., established in 1968; and Louisville, Ky., established in 1969.

Technology to gather, store and transmit applicant processing data both within the organization and to the recruiting services has advanced exponentially from the days of the typewriter and the punch card, and now impacts nearly every aspect of USMEPCOM operations. The once state-of-the art Wang word processor has long been replaced by the personal computer. The 1970’s introduced the Dura punch tape machine that recorded applicant data. It yielded the floor to the IBM magnetic card typewriter, which in turn was replaced by the Command’s mainframe computer, the IBM 370/165. In 1982 UNIVAC System 80 microcomputers linked all stations and the headquarters. In 1985 the precursor to today’s USMEPCOM Integrated Resource System, USMIRS, was introduced. USMEPCOM continues to employ modern technological solutions to maximize efficiency and hold down costs.

Today, as it has throughout its four decades of existence, the approximately 3,000 professionals who staff USMEPCOM provide the military services with new recruits who meet Department of Defense standards, ensuring the continued military manpower needed to face the Nation’s defense challenges today and tomorrow.