Jumping for Joy
Did he say “Go” or “No?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light on the side of the door flash from red to green—the pilot had cleared us to jump, but the final signal had to come from the jumpmaster. It was impossible to tell “Go” from “No” amid the scream of the C-130 Hercules’ big turboprop engines a few yards away to my right under the left wing, the roar of air across the open door, the clatter of vibrating metal, and shouts from jumpers behind me. The Go/No distinction was important—as the only officer, I was the lead jumper. My duty was to set a good example for the stick of eleven jumpers to follow me out the door.
Hesitation was dishonor. My mind raced. I looked down to the jump zone. A plume of white smoke drifted slowly from a grenade popped by an Air Force forward air controller to mark wind direction. The wind didn’t seem to be strong, but this was my first jump. What did I know—If the pilot brought us in too high we’d drift away from the drop zone and land in the river. Or a high wind might drag us across the stony Georgia soil and into the trees? Or was the static line—one end latched to a cable overhead, the other to a pin holding tight the spring-loaded parachute packed on my back—fouled somehow, and I’d find myself dangling in the slipstream, counting rivets on the side of the fuselage until the jumpmaster to cut me loose to save myself by pulling the pin on the reserve parachute strapped across my chest.
I hesitated a fraction of a second and turned, seeking clarification from the jumpmaster. I saw his boot raised to kick me out the door. I jumped.
It was a welcome relief to feel the drag of the main ‘chute as it blossomed from a tightly packed wad of ripstop nylon into a perfect bowl—smooth, round, no tears or fouled risers—a thing of glory, God-like in its life-saving power. I felt more alive than at any other time of my life—the chaos of rushing air, roar, clatter, and vibration disappeared in an instant, replaced by a serenity of relief and quiet, silky drift with the wind. Only one other experience comes close—the weightless undersea peace that awaits a scuba diver plunging from the lurching, noisome deck of a dive boat.
That first jump was the happy result of my quest to get out of the stultifying routine of the Pentagon. Despite the drama of my involvement in the JFK funeral a few months earlier, I hated working in the Pentagon dispensary, where I spent my days doing annual physical exams and treating minor illnesses.
“What must I do to get out of here,” I asked my commanding officer.
“Volunteer for the airborne and rangers,” he replied. “It’s really hard for them to find doctors stupid enough to do all of that crap.” I volunteered immediately.
I was assigned to Fort Campbell, KY, home of the legendary 101st Airborne Division of D-Day and further glory, where I would be Battalion Surgeon for the 1st Battalion of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, the first-ever US Army paratrooper unit. But first I had to go to jump school.
I reported to Fort Benning, Georgia in January 1964 and found myself the only officer in a training company of about 100 mostly teenaged enlisted men under the vigilant glare of a sinewy Black taskmaster who introduced himself as “Moon Pie” Rucker. “I am the oldest man in this company,” he said, “and you do not have permission to be tired until I am tired.”
Days were long and hellish—breakfast at 5 AM, a long run at 6, training all day in various arenas, and countless pushups for the slightest infraction, most of them impossible to avoid. For example, after free-falling to the count of four, the first thing a jumper does is look up to see if the chute canopy is properly deployed. If you’ve got a streamer (unopened ‘chute), pop the reserve, otherwise enjoy the ride down. In our training, a “Check canopy!” shout meant: stop whatever you are doing and look up. “Check cantaloupe!” was a frequent shout. I looked up every time. “Captain McConnell,” Sergeant Rucker liked to say to me, “how can an educated man like you be so damned stupid. Give me twenty.” The proper reply was “Yes, sergeant. No excuses, sergeant,” and snap out twenty pushups.
Junior officers like me trained with enlisted personnel, and the sergeants loved their temporary dominion over us. And woe to the novice jumper, officer or not, who stood out from the crowd for any reason. In our group was a memorable young Navy ensign, a gymnast, who was on track to take Navy Seal training. During our first morning in the rope pit, he made the mistake of demonstrating his prowess. Our job was to climb a thick rope, slap the bar at the top to get some lampblack on our fingers, and slide back down. Climbing a rope is hard—very hard—I barely made it to the top. Mr. Seal, however, sat down, grabbed one rope in each hand, and with legs extended perfectly, ratcheted himself to the top, grabbed the bar, did about a dozen pull-ups, and rappelled back down. It was a spectacular feat, which left the rest of us agog. Sergeant Rucker, however, was not pleased.
The next morning, jogging in formation, boots pounding out the beat to Bood On the Risers (sung to the beat of the Battle Hymn of the Republic):
He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,
He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight;
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,
He ain’t gonna jump no more!
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
He ain’t gonna jump no more
Sergeant Rucker assigned Mr. Seal to run in circles around the company as we jogged along dusty roads around the base. It was a murderously taxing task, the equivalent of endless wind sprints, but the kid seemed unfazed. He should have faked being tired.
Rucker made a further point at our next stop, the Falling Pit, a sandy expanse where we learned the fine art of the parachute landing fall, or PLF, as we called it. Yes, in the US Army there is a right way and a wrong way to fall down after landing in your parachute. Executing a PLF is a gymnastic skill—1) As your feet hit the ground, submit to the momentum; 2) tuck your lead shoulder under and roll with the momentum, which carries your feet over your head in an arc in the direction of movement; 3) Plant your feet and let the billowing parachute pull you upright facing the canopy; 4) Run to the canopy and collapse it before you’re dragged into a fence or over the edge of a cliff. With practice, it actually works, even in civilian life—I’ve done it a couple of times after stumbling while jogging.
The landing pit was where we learned PLF technique. Along one side was an elevated platform where aspiring jumpers stood in full harness, tethered by a rope to a beam high in front of the platform. The thing looked like a mass gallows, but without trap doors—victims jumped off, swung out over the sandy pit, oscillating back and forth. A drill sergeant kept the victim aloft by holding onto a rope that ran through a pulley from which the jumper dangled. After a few swings, the sergeant would let go of the rope and dump the victim to the ground at the bottom of an arc, simulating the lateral drift of most parachute landings.
Mr. Seal dutifully stood on the edge of the platform. Sergeant Rucker held the rope and gave the order, “Go!” Our Seal leaped as hard as he could to get a bigger swing than anyone else. And so he did. Back and forth he went, smiling like a child in a swing, until Sergeant Rucker let go of the rope—at the top of a swing. Mr. Seal arced out as if tossed by a giant hand and landed with a dull thud. Nobody moved. Rucker said, “Oops” and stood aside for another instructor. For the first time, our Seal didn’t leap up. But he did get up, albeit slowly. I could see by the look on his face that he’d learned the lesson.
The remainder of the training was memorable in other ways. Most terrifying was the Tower, dubbed “The Great Separator” because more trainees chickened out there than anywhere else. It was a high cage with long cables that stretched to an embankment about 50 yards away. Trainees jumped, falling free in bungee-jump fashion, and slid down the cable until their feet hit the ground, where they were to execute a PLF. You’d think jumping out of a plane would be scarier—it’s not. In a plane, you’re too high to feel the height—not so the Tower.
Then the time came for our first real jump. In typical Army fashion we harnessed up, chutes and reserves clipped on and sat for hours waiting for word to be radioed from the drop zone that conditions were right. I inspected the packing tag on my chute. On it was the name of the rigger—Whiteside. I wondered who he was and if he was still alive—riggers packed the ‘chutes and once a month had to jump one they’d packed. Finally, word came from the DZ and we boarded up, two sticks of a dozen jumpers each, one seated on each side of the cargo hold of a C-130 transport. We flew around for about an hour while the pilots did navigation drills and we contemplated life and death.
“Six minutes out!” a jumpmaster shouted as he and the other heaved open the big doors on each side of the fuselage. Screeching wind added to the rattle and roar.
“Two minutes!” I perched on the edge of my seat, heart racing, ready for the next command.
“Stand up!” I stood and faced the rear of the aircraft and the jumpmaster a few feet away, legs wide, braced against the wind swirling through the door. For the first time, I noticed each jumpmaster wore Air Force parachutes with a ripcord handle—no static line for them. If they got sucked out the door they had to deploy the chute themselves.
“Hook up!” A thick, yellow static cord ran over my shoulder to the ‘chute pack on my back, where it was attached to a pin that held in place four heavy elastic cloth flaps that embraced the compacted chute. When the pin was jerked out the flaps retracted instantly to release a carefully folded bundle of nylon, which in a perfect world always blossomed into a smooth round canopy. I fingered the clip on the end of the static cord, slapped it onto the cable that ran above my head, and gave it a wiggle to ensure it would slide with me to the door.
“Check static line!” I inspected the clip to be certain the clasp had closed properly and inserted the little cotter pin to lock it shut.
“Sound off for static line check!” From the back of the stick came a series of “OK!”s followed by a slap to the rear thigh of the jumper in front. The cascade reached me quickly and I added my “OK!” with what I hoped was inspiring confidence.
“Equipment check!” I inspected what I could see of my gear, especially the reserve chute and the clasps on top of each shoulder that held the main chute risers to the harness. The jumper behind me, after finishing his own inspection, clapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to inspect his static line and main chute pack—static line free of entanglement, pins inserted correctly, hook-up okay. I felt the jumpmaster checking out my pack. With a final shoulder slap, we turned back toward the doors.
“Sound off for equipment check!” A series of OKs rolled forward.
“Shuffle to the door!” I edged forward, the door gaping off to my right shoulder. The others pressed close behind me. The jumpmaster leaned out the door the rush of slipstream air distorted his face as he looked for white smoke from a grenade that marked the edge of the DZ and gave us a thumbs up to signaled the DZ was “Go.”
“Stand in the door!” I turned and stepped into the door, feet on the platform, and extended my arms, palms back, to press on the outside of the fuselage. My hands and feet were outside, in the slipstream. The only thing that kept me from being blown away was the curve of the fuselage. The light on the left side of the door glowed red. For all of the chaos, the DZ was a beautiful and peaceful scene. The sun was half down behind the trees. In the gathering dusk below a jeep, ambulance, and transport trucks sat, toy-like, at the edge of a large clearing. White grenade smoke drifted lazily. I was ready for “Go!”
Epilogue
I’ve had a lot of schooling and US Army jump school was among the most effective and the shortest: two weeks of ground school and one week of jumping. Officers and enlisted trained together; rank counted for nothing.
The day began at 6 AM with a formation run singing “Blood on the Risers” as our boots thumped out the beat to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic:
He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,
He checked all his equipment and made sure his pack was tight;
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,
He ain’t gonna jump no more!
Gory, gory, what a hell of away to die,
Gory, gory,what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of away to die,
He ain’t gonna jump no more!
From time to time wear a little gold replica of the jump wings pinned on my chest at graduation. I’ve met a lot of interesting people as a result—in France, the former US ambassador to Luxembourg, who at Nuremberg had been the final interrogator of Hermann Goering; in Turkey, Goering’s initial interrogator; on Cape Cod, a Tuskegee airman; in Dallas one of Merrill’s Marauders of WWII Burmese jungle war fame. And many others less notable. I’ve heard some good stories.
During my two-year tour, I developed a great respect for the US military. Despite the brevity of my service, a bond grew that has strengthened with the years. It is not too much to call it a brotherhood—not for nothing is “Band of Brothers” the name of Stephen Ambrose’s magnificent WWII history of E Company, 506th Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, which at FortCampbell was stationed down the street near my unit, the 501st. I loved my job and made about a dozen more “pay jumps,” which were required for the hazardous duty pay we earned. I seriously considered making it a career.
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