Applying to be Made a Mason

During my time on active duty in the Air Force I was investigated and granted a Top Secret Clearance. During this investigation the FBI shakes your family tree and go hunting in the closets for skeletons. This process can be nerve racking, but seeing that the Masons put together an investigation committee of three people to write up a report on you over a period of 28 days, you have to wonder which came first the chicken or the egg? Still it was nothing new, and so I filled out the application form, and honest every question. I got to a bizarre question asking if I ever committed an act that was “gravely immoral” or something along those lines. When I was younger I got drunk and slashed a tire, yeah something stupid. But I thought it was better to just be honest about it then to blow it off as another empty form. I read on the internet, some Lodges would reject my application for this simple fact, and I thought to myself “if they reject it, then it was never meant to be.” So I filled it out, and I moved on, I was called by the investigating committee and they wanted to meet at the lodge. We had a good meeting, they asked about the incident and said they didn’t feel it was reason to disqualify my application but if the members of the Lodge choose to reject it based on that fact, there was nothing they could do about it, I just told them “It’s better to come clean with this stuff now, then for it to surface later.” If the brothers rejected me, then so be it. After 28 days (right after Thanksgiving) I got an e-mail saying that I was accepted and that they wanted to confer the degree of Entered Apprentice on 12 December 2006.