Hough, while in the 82nd Airborne, I spent 3 summer drills training secondary 96B Intel Analysts of the 28th Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
This was prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Keystone State.
Hough, while in the 82nd Airborne, I spent 3 summer drills training secondary 96B Intel Analysts of the 28th Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
This was prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Keystone State.
I spent a lot of time protecting and transplanting poison ivy patches at Atterbury.
Before that, I also spent some time training the 28th, at Indian Town Gap.
The most fun I had was playing OPFOR for other units including ROTC cadets.
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I never told my parents I hadn't graduated until I actually did 2 years later. I even walked through graduation in spring 1993 (I left college after fall 1992) and got an empty envelope. I finally graduated in December 1994.
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... the same idiot is running towards you, with the wind, and mirrors you pulling your toggle. Bam, he slams into you. ...
Bob
This will not play well at your confirmation hearings.
As a confirmed LEG, I kinda felt like land nav was important and I was damned good at it, day or night.
You haven't lived until the cherry next to you pulls you out of the Huey by your field pant legs on your 6th jump. After you clear the skid you realize you're upside down. It will fix itself. Then bicycle out of the twisted risers. Start to enjoy the ride until the same idiot is running towards you, with the wind, and mirrors you pulling your toggle. Bam, he slams into you. He then pulls both toggles and drops below you. Looking up, you see your chute deflate, because since he was under you and couldn't see he lets go of his toggles. Long story short, did you know it's about 30' from top of canopy to your shoulders? Neither did I but that's about how far I fell onto the packed runway on St. Mere without air in my chute. Cracked and dislocated a couple of things in my legs but if I could have got up I would have killed that trooper. Saw him running away across the DZ never to be seen again.
And thus started my Airborne career.
A leg will always be a leg as far as an Airborne trooper goes, but, the wings on your chest make you Airborne forever.
Bob
Was just running off the landing zone during Jump Week when we heard the Black Hats blaring at us through the megaphones "EVERYONE STOP AND FACE THE DROP ZONE. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT THREE DUMBASSES LOOK LIKE."
There were three guys all tangled up together, all three chutes reinflated, coming down like one of the Apollo space capsules. Bam, right into the ground, no PLFs, just thump. Was told later one of them had his thumb degloved with a lose riser line got wrapped around it in the "crash" and then the chute reinflated. ouch.
Yeah, it's always super secret-secret squirrel stuff. Nobody ever makes up stuff about driving a forklift in the rain, or loading a truck in a snowstorm, or what you got at a DRMO sale, or going to meetings.
6+ years on jump status, around 100 jumps and the only malfunctions I can boast are a chute "full" of small (less than fist size) holes. It was my very first jump, I checked my rate of descent and there were a lot of jumpers below me and since I was the lead man in the 1st plane I was confident I was OK. That didn't stop the black hat on the ground from bellowing at me to pull mu reserve.
Another time I had a full right to left inversion. I will never be convinced that both of those chutes were not packed that way.