This is always the worst part. Crammed on a tiny seat of red nylon cargo netting next to sixty other paratroopers, unable to find a comfortable way to sit that at the same time relieves the weight of the rucksack from your waist and your chute from your back. The C-130 sways and bucks in a meticulously orchestrated pattern for educing maximum levels of nausea while mechanical pings and pangs keep ever mindful that this Mac truck with wings is easily older than you are. The men around you are bathed in the cool blue light but it doesn’t help to make the mood less anxious. The knots in your stomach strongly suggest you that you should have maybe just had two of those gut-truck burgers and not three, still somehow you find a thin, fitful sleep. In your mind you recount the steps you’re going to take as you exit the aircraft, watching your body as it falls into space, imagining everything that could go wrong, the malfunctions, the broken bones, and then you remind yourself that statistically speaking, tonight you’ve got a pretty good chance of not becoming a statistic.
A short while later you open your eyes as the Jumpmaster opens the door revealing the darkness beyond. The droning roar of the four propellers slicing through the chill night air makes it impossible to communicate below shouting level. You don’t feel much like talking anyway. 1200 feet below, lights from street lamps blur in the prop-wash giving adding another layer of doubt to this already surreal situation. You signed up to do this, you actually volunteered twice! And you remember that your original orders were to Ft. Carson, Colorado. You think about snowboarding and you kick yourself… or you would if you could move your legs. 130-knot winds slide along just feet from you as you stand and check your static line that will open your chute as you exit. Again you’re painfully aware of the 150 lbs of equipment attached to you, but the adrenaline helps takes the edge off. The ritual equipment check ends with each paratrooper yelling “Ok!” letting the guy in front of him know he’s good to go. There’s also the slap on the ass… you choose the shoulder. The red light by the door flicks to green and the first man takes two steps and disappears. One-one thousand, the Jumpmaster yells “go” and you hand your line off and step into space.
Twisting and turning violently in freefall your chin tucked to your chest, hands gripping the sides of your reserve chute on your waist; you forget to count to four. It seems like you’ll know if it doesn’t feel right even if you don’t count. But it does feel right, you slow down and the world comes back into sharp focus giving you your first chance to look up to see the beauty of a fully deployed canopy catching the soft blue-gray glow of the full moon. Let’s see, chute open, check, risers untwisted, check, nuts intact, check, so far a good jump. Usually you’d expect to see other jumpers falling close around you but on this night you’re gloriously alone and enjoying one of the most thrilling experiences in life.
Gela drop zone isn’t as long as Sicily, which is the largest in North America (a subject that somehow renders a hearty and ubiquitous pride among those in Division, but really is it any surprise that it’s here at Ft. Bragg, the home of airborne and special operations?) ((EDIT) - As Cpt. Hesterman said, Gela and Sicily are actually the same drop zone, just flown in different directions, I wasn't aware of this.) More importantly Gela consists of mostly soft damp sand that is impact friendly when the winds are low. They say not to look at the ground because you’ll land sooner than you think in the dark but they say lots of stupid shit so you look and realize your about 200 feet up, release your ruck-sack and weapon so they go sliding down a 50 foot line that you hopefully won’t land on. You keep looking and see that you’re drifting to your right and backwards so you pull your front left riser to slow down but like always you do it too soon and switch direction of travel at the last second, slam into the ground with a knee grinding thud, the air rushes out of your lungs with a surprised and pathetic “huuuh” and roll over onto your back and look up at the stars. You laugh.
…
This is pretty much how a Mass Tactical night jump happens. It’s not glamorous but it’s pretty cool to look back on once you’re safe and in one piece on the ground. What was even better about it was a cherry (a new paratrooper) scampered up to me as I was putting on my night vision and getting my weapon ready and offered to carry my chute off the drop zone because he didn’t have anything to carry. The guys with no jumps in Division jump Hollywood style with no equipment because they aren’t trusted to do it safely, though I don’t see how my one jump makes me that much more qualified.
Later that night as the squadron marched 12 miles back home I rode in the field ambulance behind the pre-ranger training group and ended up treated a sprained ankle and a cold weather injury that could have been fatal with we hadn’t gotten to him when we did. The weather that night wasn’t that cold by Bragg standards, maybe in the high 40’s low 50’s but it had been raining off and on since we’d been on the drop zone and the guys we picked up were soaked to the bone. At one point he stopped shivering which I took as a good sign at first until I realized it was more likely that he was going into mind hypothermia even with the space blanket I’d put over him. We rushed him to the ER and he was released the next morning. I didn’t get to sleep until about 8 am. Then had to be up at 9:30 for a briefing. I slept the rest of the day.
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This next part was actually from the beginning of November when we had just returned home.
It’s amazing how fast the money goes when you get home. Well maybe not that amazing considering how I’ve never been too good at living within my means. But I think I deserve a LCD flat-screen TV and a Play Station 3 and a Bose speaker system for my computer. I almost bought another guitar too, but six is probably enough. They are all in California though. I’ll figure something out.
So I sit here now in the calm of the mid morning in my own room. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds are proving that you don’t have to be able to speak coherently to play beautiful music. It’s warm in my room and it smells like apples and pears because of this bottle of dish soap that we bought that has an air freshener built into the base. Apparently while I was gone, everything had to get an air freshener built into it. I have my own shower, a little electronic stove top that I’ve already cooked Lil’ Smokey sausages on… so delicious. Each night I fall asleep watching the BBC series “Planet Earth” that I bought on high definition Blu-Ray DVD. Mexican Cave Glow Worms catching flies with long strings of mucus and silk and eating them alive can be so beautiful when viewed with the correct technology.
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It’s not all a fairy-tale life though. Sometimes I have to actually leave my room and go into Fayetteville and interact with the unwashed masses. Wal-Mart is a particular joy. Of course by joy I mean it’s an anxiety ridden freak fest starring the most bovine undergrowth allowed to call them selves human. Before I even enter the Wal’s gaping maw I’m harassed by an African American gentleman wanting to know if A) I’m in the military and B) if I need a ride back to base. Normally I’d trust any stranger with missing teeth and a lazy eye with my life, hell just look at my day job, but when he asked if I was military my creep-o meter spiked into the red.
In towns like Fayetteville posing a question like this is actually a thinly veiled euphemism for, “how would you like me to fuck you today?” Depending on the chosen profession of the one making the proposition, this is not always an unwelcome request but as far as transportation goes it’s a potential death sentence. Also, why was he asking me if I needed a ride as I entered the store instead of focusing on the patrons on their way out? As my friend smoked a cigarette, I learned that this cabby had recently gone into business for himself because he didn’t want to pay Yellow Cab $300 a week to be contracted by them. He pointed out which cab was his and as I turned to look at the mid 90’s era primer black Crown Vic wedged awkwardly into a nearby parking spot I could see how $300 would have been a stretch.
Initial survey and decision quickly completed I look my leave, shopped for the essentials I came for and waiting in line for forty minutes which I hear is fairly standard. Back at the barracks enjoy my personal space. I’m glad that music still comes to me. There was a time when I felt like that part of me was withering up, a cracked leaf skeleton in the autumn forest of my dreams, but like everything, it comes and goes as it pleases. Perhaps then, even when life gives you questionable methods of transportation, it’s best to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
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