10/11/2023
Happy VETS day to my brothers and sisters that served. Here's a short tale about my first Airborne jump.
Full of nerves, I saw the green light and heard, “Go, go, go, go, go.” We filed out one by one, handing off our rip cords and leaping from the aircraft. We were trained to jump, then count: one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. At four thousand, you should feel your chute deploy with a hard jolt. It was my turn. I made eye contact with the jump master, handed him my rip cord, faced the door, and leaped. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six thousand. Something was wrong—I felt no chute pop, no jolt. In most situations, you're taught to look up and check your risers, the straps connecting the parachute canopy to the harness. But I couldn’t look up; my head was locked down to my chest. The ground was coming up fast. I needed to figure this out or I was going to die.
I stayed calm, recalling my training. I remembered getting "cigarette rolled"—spun by the prop blast, causing the chute not to open. I took action, reaching for the risers and feeling the ground approaching rapidly. I pulled the risers apart while bicycling my legs for momentum. I started to spin, a good sign. Then boom, the chute opened. I managed to get my bearings and noticed the other jumpers above me. Strange, since I was the last to jump. No time to ponder—here comes the ground. P.L.F. time: knees, feet together, aiming to hit feet, calves, thighs, lats, shoulder, then roll.
“Thwack.” I hit the ground so hard I swear I bounced. There was no P.L.F., just a lack of air in my lungs. My chute had opened too close to the ground to gather air. I'd come close to death without realizing it. Wheezing on the ground, I could only think, “Sh*t, is it going to be like that every time?”
#275
📸 2008 Iraq
