The difference between skydiving and parachuting
This story is to help people unfamiliar with this topic understand
the difference between skydiving and military parachuting. I’ve lost count of
the times I’ve told folks I was a military master parachutist, and they go off
asking questions you should ask a skydiver. And when I try to correct them,
they look at me like I’m a Martian. So folks I hope this will clear up the
confusion, and hopefully get people to understand what it really means to be a
military parachutist (or what it means to be one of our close cousins, a smoke
jumper. Except for the firepower we carry, the parachuting is the same).
To help the reader understand the full impact of what we do
I present the rule of LGOPs:
The rule of LGOPs, or Little Group of Paratroopers, is a
concept in the US Army that describes how soldiers adapt and overcome
situations in combat: After the demise
of the best Airborne plan, a most terrifying effect occurs on the battlefield.
This effect is known as the rule of the LGOPs. This is, in its purest form,
small groups of pissed-off 19-year-old American paratroopers. They are well-trained.
They are armed to the teeth and lack serious adult supervision. They
collectively remember the Commander’s intent as “March to the sound of the guns
and kill anyone who is not dressed like you” – or something like that.
We are in extended ranks for a late afternoon manifest call.
This is how every night jump begins. We stand in formation, dog tags hanging
outside our shirts, ID cards in our left hands. The jump masters walk down the
ranks checking each trooper’s IDs against the jump manifest and that they have
their dog tags.
Once the jump masters have verified that all the jumpers on
the manifest are present, and they all have their dog tags and IDs we close
ranks, pick up our gear, and load onto the trucks for the ride to “green ramp”.
People always make the mistake of thinking that skydiving is
the same as military parachuting. The truth is the only thing they have in
common is that you use a parachute in both.
The ride to “green ramp” is relatively quiet. There is some
good-natured kidding, and a few jokes, but mostly there’s introspection.
Some pray, some smoke, and all of us recheck our equipment.
The trucks pull into the unloading area at “green ramp “. We
get off the trucks, assemble, pick up our gear, and march to the rigging area.
When our commander directs us to, we ground our equipment and move over to
parachute issue. We draw our main and reserve parachutes and return to our
equipment.
We pair up and use the buddy system to put on our
parachutes. We attach our equipment and weapons. We will carry on our bodies
everything we need to fight and survive for seventy-two hours of sustained
combat. We check each other and move over to the jump masters for pre-jump
inspection. Once we have been inspected and assigned the door we’ll be jumping
we get in stick order and sit down. Tonight, I will be the first jumper in the
starboard door.
As we wait, I check that I can reach the knife I have
strapped to my right boot. I release the safety strap and grip the handle. I
pull it up and it slides smoothly out of the sheath. Most of the guys prefer
the Marine Corps Ka-Bar, but I feel that my Gerber Mk II is more elegant,
though it requires more skill to use. After checking the blade, I slip it back
into the sheath and snap the safety strap back in place.
The jump masters go to conduct their safety inspections of
the drop aircraft. When they’ve finished, they put on their parachutes and
equipment. They inspect each other and join the rest of us as we wait to get on
the airplanes.
A stark difference between skydiving and military
parachuting is in skydiving there are few people in the sky at the same time.
Tonight, I’ll be in the first of four flights of aircraft just minutes apart,
tonight I’ll share the sky with nearly six hundred members of the battalion.
But there is a moment, a very elusive moment, one that we
all seek. It is this moment that keeps us coming back, that keeps us jumping.
At 20:00 hours we load onto the aircraft. We waddle onto the
tarmac and to the waiting planes. When you’re wearing 96 pounds of combat
equipment, ammunition, water, and food plus 46 pounds of parachute all you can
do is waddle. I’m a medic so I have an extra 15 pounds of medical supplies.
Fortunately, I’m not carrying a W.I.C.E. bag, that would really suck.
At 20:40 hours the first flight taxis for takeoff. The JATO
(Jet Assisted Takeoff) bottles ignite, and the acceleration of the aircraft
slams us against each other. When the planes clear the runway the JATO bottles
fall away. The forty-minute flight to the drop zone begins.
Believe it or not, you can sleep when you’re this loaded up.
Packed into the plane like this there’s nothing else you can do. No one wants
to talk; everyone is too busy with their own thoughts.
Flying in an Air Force transport for a jump is not like
being in an airliner. There are no rows of seats and no flight attendants. Port
and starboard “sticks” sit with our backs against the skin of the aircraft, and the
center aisle “sticks” sit back-to-back facing us. There is no room to walk down
the aisles so the safety NCOs must walk on us to do their inflight checks.
The jump masters give the ten-minute warning. They have to
use hand and arm signals because the noise from the engines is so loud only
those seated close to them can hear them.
Shortly comes the six-minute warning. The jump masters take
their positions as the aircrew and safety NCOs make their final checks.
The jump masters start giving their commands.
“Outboard personnel stand up!” Those of us seated against
the skin of the aircraft stand, lift our seats out of the way, locking them in
the up position, and face the jump masters.
“Inboard personnel stand up!” The inside sticks stand,
raising their seats and face the jump masters as well.
“Hook up!” We all hook up our static lines to the anchor
line cables.
“Check static lines!” We all trace our static lines as far
as we can, and then we check the static line of the jumper in front of us.
“Check equipment!” We all check that our equipment is still
properly rigged and connected to our harnesses.
“Sound off for equipment check!” Starting from the front of
the aircraft each jumper swats the butt of the jumper in front of him and
shouts, “Okay!” This continues until it reaches the jumpers closest to the
doors. When the check reaches me, I stomp my left foot, point to the jump
master for my door and shout, “All okay!”
The jump master gives me the thumbs up and goes to do the
door safety checks. He feels the edges of the door frame. He stomps on the jump
step making sure it’s secure. Next, he moves to the edge of the jump step and
leans outside the aircraft to check for obstructions. When the jump master has
completed the safety checks he moves back into the plane and looks out the door
for the ground markers.
Shortly the aircraft’s crew chief touches the jump masters’
shoulder and speaks into his ear. The jump master nods and steps back from the
door. He shouts, “One minute!” Then he points at me and commands, “Stand in the
door!”
I shuffle to the door and get into position. I can see the
jump lights on the door frame. The light is currently red.
Standing in the door, the world passes by. The cool air, the
smell of spring mixed with burnt JP4. The clock ticks, seconds turning to
minutes. Adrenaline pumping, I’m ready to spring into the sky. Heart pounding,
pulse racing. Stars sparkling on the horizon.
The light changes from red to green. A shout in my left ear,
“Go!” I leap out of the door.
The wind twists me parallel to the plane. I see the canopy
starting to deploy beneath my feet. The roar of engines fade as I swing below
the canopy. I check that it has deployed correctly.
The night closes in and for a moment I’m alone, and I become
one with the night sky.
R. A. “Doc”
Correa
www.goldenboxbooks.com/ra-doc-correa.html
A retired US Army military master parachutist retired
surgical technologist, and retired computer scientist. He’s an award-winning
poet and author. “Doc” has had poems published in multiple books and had
stories published in Bookish Magazine and Your Secret Library. His first novel,
Rapier, won a Book Excellence award and was given a Reader’s Favorite five-star
review.
