All The Way

Put silver wings on my son's chest
Make him one of America's best
--The Ballad of the Green Berets,
Barry Sadler

Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump:
you have to get it right the first time.
--Margaret Mead
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Ranger graduated from Jump School 29 August 1968, a mere 41 years ago. It is hard to believe that young 2nd Lieutenant No. 44 has turned into an angry, hostile old man who now traverses life for better or worse without benefit of a reserve parachute.

Jump School, contrary to reports, was fun and a walk through the park, except for brand new 2 LT's. These low life forms were severely predated upon by the enlisted instructors. Ironically, several of these same instructors became lifelong friends; unfortunately, many of them no longer muster roll call.

One of them, Frank Norbury, died in a parachute SNAFU at Ft. Bragg. As we were taught, "The sky, unlike the sea, is unforgiving of the smallest mistake." And as we used to add, "You can tread water, but you can't tread air."

The hardest part of Jump School for a Yankee boy was fighting the weather. Having entered active duty in June and starting Jump School in August was a brutal acquaintance with the Georgia sun, heat and humidity.

On the average day of training, medevac helicopters were frequently inbound to pick up serious heat injuries. Normal heat problems were handled by medics on-site. Students were required to drink one quart of salted water every hour, take salt pills and to shower down hourly. We used to roll through the showers with our boots outside the water stream to keep them somewhat dry, thereby keeping blisters to the minimum.

Ranger doubts pro football players train harder than we did in that Georgia heat. We always wore boots and only removed our helmets during morning runs. Now the young troopers wear running shoes for their runs, and frequently ground their helmets. Ranger wonders if any Airborne trooper ever ran in combat wearing running shoes? When we left that training we were cubs maturing into wolves.

Every night we got drunk --seriously drunk -- and the morning runs smelled of whisky-laden sweat. This was the time frame that John Wayne was filming The Green Berets at Benning, and he frequently stopped by the Airborne Annex to the Officers Club and bought drinks for the bar.

In the movie, Wayne was featured with the Airborne legend Lamar O. Welch, Commander, Airborne Department, in a skeet shooting scene. Colonel Welch was so old that he followed running troopers at morning PT in his convertible Kharmann Ghia. Col. Welch frequently jumped with the troops, and he died as he lived -- drunk.

Back then, jump school was three weeks -- Ground, Tower and Jump weeks. Immediately following Jump School, we young Regular Army officers were sent to Jumpmaster School, and my picture with #15 is from that school.

After Jump Training, it was off to Combat Conditioning Course of the Ranger component. For six weeks, it was six hours of daily physical training and swimming in preparation for Ranger class 7-69 commencing in November 68 and graduating in February 69.

The rest was all downhill, and then some.
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Correction: Chastening, 12.02.09