Para-Memories

The tag teaming continued last night with a call from my favorite son who revealed he‘ll be joining us for the weekend. He’s catching a train into Worcester from his Boston work location just in time for First Friday commemorations. The ABFA is, as usual, decisively engaged with her legion of followers but will break free at some point on Saturday to join us. This definably enters the ledger as a decisive win. Since nothing else is going on and my wife and dog did nothing blogworthy I’m left with scant material to relate. One of the things my wife encouraged me to do was to start relating some stories from my time in the Army since by the time the First Blog Readers are old enough to understand I will probably have forgotten most of it.

She recommended I start out with my time as a paratrooper. She thought it was exotic and it was what I was doing when we met, oh so long ago. It’s hard to describe for a civilian who has never experienced it but Army parachuting is not as fun as it sounds, but it is so cool to experience. I kind of fell into the role as I completed Officer Training and the basic infantry officers’ at Fort Benning (or Fort Beginning as its known to those who hang around long enough). It was almost expected for all infantry officers to be airborne qualified as the airborne school was also at that baked piece of Georgia red clay.

At that time airborne school was three weeks long, one week of learning how to fall, one week on the towers and one week of jumping out of aircraft. There was no rank in the school so officers and enlisted went through the same process. I ended up hanging out with a bunch of Navy SEALs who were as crazy as expected, good people. The school is run by a bunch of tough NCOs who wore black baseball caps, hence their nom de guerre “black hats”. The first week was a lot of PT that was supposed to be challenging and I guess it was for the non-infantry types. We spent that week learning the tried and true parachute landing fall (PLF – because the Army needs to acronymize everything) technique. That meant landing with feet and knees together and hitting sequentially the five points of contact doctrine called for: the balls of the feet, side of the calf, side of the thigh, side of the hip or buttocks, and side of the back (the push-up muscle in black hat parlance). We learned this by jumping off increasingly higher platforms a few hundred times.

The 200 Foot Tower

The tower week was practicing exiting the door of the aircraft properly, probably the most dangerous part of jumping (well that and the occasional landing). The Army had a series of towers where we’d all line up like we were in an aircraft and then jump out the door and then be transported down a zip line for the inevitable black hat criticism of the door exit which was supposed to be an energetic jump. Tower week culminated with a couple jumps from the 200 foot tower which was the scariest thing about jump school. A parachute is stretched out in cone and the student is then raised 200 feet into the air. While hanging up there you have to remove a safety strap that prevents an accidental release. Once that’s done the jumper is raised abruptly to release the parachute (works about 97% of the time). The jumper is then treated to a three second drop to the ground and inevitable black hat critique of the landing.

Jump week was about five minutes of actual jumping crammed into an entire week of waiting in lines, practicing PLFs, and generally enjoying the balmy Georgia summer heat. The old joke is that by the time of the first jump the paratrooper is so motivated that he would jump without a parachute (an urban legend to be sure). The actual jumping was a little bit anticlimactic. For me all I saw was the back of the guy’s head in front of me as we shuffled towards the door. There was a brief glimpse of sunshine and all of a sudden I was out the door going through the three seconds of hell as the parachute is ripped from the pack (good idea to keep your chin tucked for that). My intended energetic jump was more of just falling out the door. I was most surprised by the absolute silence that followed the decibel laden plane ride. All the training immediately took hold as I drifted down. I also noted that weight made a difference as I was descending a lot faster than some of my smaller comrades. Going faster meant I hit the ground a lot harder so the PLF was important. The jumping was a lot of fun, landing, not so much.

Current Conditions Inside a C-130 - Glad to See It Hasn't Got Any Roomier

The best part of being airborne qualified was assignment to an airborne unit where I found the troopers more motivated than their non-airborne counterparts (or in airborne lexicon – “dirty, nasty legs” when referring to the non-airborne qualified). Jumping with an airborne unit on an actual mission is an entirely different experience. Jumping with a weapon and a rucksack (usually 50-75lbs inside) was interesting. I remember barely being able to walk once we were all rigged up (note to self – very important to have the groin straps tight – if you wanted children that is). Shuffling into the aircraft we were packed like sardines while the air force load masters looked at us like some strain of aberrant creatures (why would we jump out of a perfectly good airplane that was going to land was their standard joke). I remember the heat and intense discomfort as the pilot would turn on the air-conditioning which resulted in streams of mist descending on the packed compartment. Invariably everyone would promptly fall asleep and it was physically impossible to move (important to take that last minute bathroom break before rigging up).

Lowering Rucksack

Most of the jumps with the unit were at night which was kind of cool, until you hit the ground and had to find your assembly point. Laden with over a hundred pounds of gear there was very little jumping out the door and a lot of my trademark falling. Just prior to impact with the ground we were supposed to lower the rucksack via a trap so it would not break your legs. If the wind was up even a little bit the landing became even more of an adventure losing two of the five point PLF which evolved to feet, ass, head in very quick order.

Venado Drop Zone

Jumping in Panama was interesting. We jumped most into Venado Drop Zone right on the Pacific Coast. When the leading edge of the drop zone involves some of the most shark laden water in the world there’s a modicum of concern. We always put the junior jumpers first (called them wind dummies) and then adjusted our release point if they landed in the water (not a fun experience – remember the heavy rucksack and weapon). It was always feast or famine in terms of landing conditions in Panama. During the rainy season the cuna grass would grow to heights of 12 feet and made for a cushy landing (but an absolute bitch to walk out of). During the dry season the drop zone invariably burned off which left tens of thousands of three inch tall and three inch round grass stalks. One unfortunate green beret landed awkwardly and received an early colonoscopy from one of those (ouch).

View on Leaving Aircraft

I eventually became a jumpmaster who was responsible for checking the rigging of each jumper and then controlling the exit of the jumpers out the door when the light turned green. That involved what I still think was the coolest thing I ever did in the Army. The jumpmaster is required to stand in the door of the aircraft and lean out into space to spot the upcoming drop zone. If you’ve never hung out of a jet in flight you’ve missed something.  A little bit scary, but the view can’t be beat. I’d volunteer to jumpmaster tomorrow just to get that experience again.

Jumpmaster with his Knees in the Breeze

I’ve written a lot more than I expected but I truly enjoyed my time in the airborne, mostly because of the paratroopers I got to serve with – truly outstanding Soldiers. Military jumping isn’t the serene easy landing you get with a civilian chute as the whole point is to get you to the ground as quickly and moderately safely as possible. It’s also a lot more dangerous that civilian jumping, we had two fatalities during my time and another jumpmaster lost all the flesh off one arm when a static line wrapped around it. After you few dozen jumps you realize the importance of the training to land properly. It’s like jumping out of a second story window. It’s funny but the training stuck. It’s been well over twenty years since my last jump but whenever I jump off anything I still land with my feet and knees together.