Day: April 29, 2009 JUMP DAY #3

Day: April 29, 2009 JUMP DAY #3 “THE FINAL JUMP”
Weather report: mid-80’s today, humidity 42% wind 5 SSE

My day started at 0700hrs. I woke up and slept very hard last night. I was in much need of some rest and recovery time. I failed to do laundry on Sunday and decided to sit outside on the bench and wash my clothes. To my surprise a washing machine was not being used. This made my day start off really well. I started packing my clothes and my gear that I would not need for the rest of my stay here and am getting excited about going home of Friday. This school has gone by very fast, yet the days have been brutal at times and extremely long with the heat.

Formation at 1400hrs and move out to the PIT for refresher training on hazards, PLF’s and mock door exits. It is sad that this is the last time that we will perform these drills. We will have successfully completed the Airborne Course tonight after our fifth and final jump, THE NIGHT FULL COMBAT JUMP. The other jumps have been fun and interesting to this point and the stories of my fellow paratroopers and their experiences have been exaggerated at times but fun to talk about.

Tonight our jump went off without any problems. We started loading the planes at 2030hrs. The sun was beginning to set and the sky line was beautiful. Patchy cloud cover and the oranges, reds, and yellows were very impressive. As we made the turn for the plane you could tell it was going to be a very different experience. We approached the ramp to load and the aircraft had the eerie night operations lights inside had a greenish blue glow about them. This jump we has some of the Best Ranger Challenge personal on our jump. They went first and their jumpmaster handed off his static line and leapt out of the aircraft. The next pass and it was our turn. The jump commands began and we headed for the door. Green light and out we went, I was the number thirteen Jumper in the stick and was at the nose of the plane. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, had the static line off to the Jumpmaster Safety and turned kicked my leg up and out and felt the breeze push me past the rear of our bird. Three Thousand and a tug on my shoulders, my last jump and decent had begun. It was neat to see the parachute light up by the moonlight and the stars. I checked my canopy twice because of the low visibility and looked around for fellow jumpers. I did not want any problems during any of my jumps, especially this night one. Prepare to land, I released my combat gear and started my final approach at jump school. The landing was a little tricky because we did not have any smoke on the ground to show us wind drift nor did we have any sergeant airborne’s on the ground telling us what to do. We were completely on our own tonight. I felt my rucksack hit the ground, tensed up my neck muscles, tucked my chin on my chest, raised my arms over my face and the balls of my feet hit the ground. A perfect PLF and I was very happy, but it was not over yet. Speed was of importance to my on this jump because of all the other three hundred paratroopers coming down on top of the drop zone in the next few minutes. I popped up to one knee and began securing my combat gear, loaded up and off the drop zone I went. I was the first jumper off the drop zone tonight. AIRBORNE!

We all landed and had MRE’s; I had beef pot roast this time. Then we had to take all our combat equipment apart and set it up for the next class. Tonight was our night to shake out parachutes. They have been piling up over the past three days. Chalks one thru four shook out 1267 parachutes. The toll was taken on our mental and physical readiness. The bummer was the formation tomorrow will be at 0800hrs. Not long for us to rest or anything else. I got to my room and showered put pizza rolls in the microwave. I crashed for one hour and thirty minutes.

PULL-UPS for the day: 20