In Florida: Jumping with the 82nd

By Don Sider

He feels the giddiness deep in his gut: an amalgam of excitement, anticipation and, he admits only to himself, a touch of fear. His unit has just been alerted for a mass jump. With each ritualistic step from now until he is back on the ground, the giddiness will return. That is part of all this, a part the Paratrooper likes best.

The largest U.S. parachute drop in peacetime wafted down onto the sandy scrubland of Florida's panhandle early one morning this month: 2,640 soldiers leaping from 20 huge C-141 jets, along with three more planeloads of Jeeps and other heavy equipment. They came from the XVIII Airborne Corps and the First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. If war or the threat of war were to come in the Persian Gulf area, these paratroopers likely would be the U.S. spearhead.

He feels the inner electricity again during the intense hours of refresher training that precede every jump. The sessions are like a football team's pregame warmup, insurance that the jumpers are sharp and ready, that in an inherently risky venture, risk will be held to a minimum. They trigger his adrenaline.

The scenario for this exercise has a small friendly nation, "Granna," under attack by forces from two of its neighbors, "Holguin" and "Kupa." Granna requests assistance. The President sends U.S. troops.

Late in the afternoon, the Paratrooper is trucked with the others to barracks alongside the airfield at Fort Bragg. Here they will spend the night. But first their jumpmasters must check them in and assign them positions for the drop. It is a long, dull procedure, and the Paratrooper smiles when he thinks how much like a flock of sheep or a herd of cows they all are--passive, oblivious to the time and space they occupy, psychically removed. In their minds many of them are, like himself, already in the plane or stepping out of it. As one of the guys says: "When you see yourself going through the door, all the hassles disappear."

The paratroopers are to seize an airstrip 10 km from the jump site so that, in a real war, thousands more could fly in aboard transport planes. On the way, they will engage two companies of "Aggressors," played by other units from the 82nd Airborne and the Air Force.

The men are finally dismissed at 7:30 p.m. By 8 most are in bed; the day ahead will start at 4 a.m. The Paratrooper lies there thinking of what his brigade commander, Colonel Charles Ferguson, said that afternoon: "It's exciting. You get up for it. You have to do everything right. If you jump from 1,000 ft. and your parachute doesn 't open, you hit the ground in eight seconds." The Paratrooper does not sleep well, and he suspects most of the others do not either.

If this had been the real thing, the First Brigade would have been in the air within 18 hours of the signal to go. The 82nd, two other Army divisions and one Marine division are the ground combat element of the Rapid Deployment Force. Because paratroopers are able to land anywhere with maximum speed and surprise, the 82nd is always at the ready.

At 6 a.m., the Paratrooper draws his chutes--the main, worn on the back, and the small reserve, which will ride on his chest. "Put 'em on," orders the jumpmaster, and the Paratrooper and a buddy help each other, threading the straps, snapping the hooks, fitting each item by the book. An officer pokes and tugs and checks every item, again by the book, then slaps the Paratrooper on the rump and says, "O.K." It is light now, and the Paratrooper stares with amusement at the troopers around him. Their faces, like his, are smeared with camouflage grease paint, blending with their mottled uniforms and helmet covers, as in some military minstrel show. The order to board the plane snaps him from his reverie. "The only way down now will be to jump," he says to himself, just as he has said to himself with every takeoff before every jump.

Lieut. General Thomas Tackaberry, commander of the XV111 Airborne Corps, was the first man out of the first C-141. Standing in the drop zone, he said the mass assault had a dual purpose. It tested how well the Army and Air Force could carry off such a huge troop movement (very well with a brigade, but a whole division is so much larger that there may be barely enough planes to deliver it across the sea). The exercise did something for the individual paratroopers as well. Said Tackaberry: "Psychologically, it helps a man to know he's part of a big unit." Every jump is a re-validation, a reassurance that the paratroopers are special.

Aboard the C-141, the Paratrooper, jammed among his equipment-laden buddies, drifts into and out of sleep. Twenty minutes from the drop zone, the final commands begin. Then he is out the door and into the clear sky, counting aloud, "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand." His chute is snatched open by the rushing air, and he drifts toward the ground.

One V formation after another of C-141s lumbered 1,000 ft. overhead at 125 m.p.h., spewing parachutists from both sides, as escort planes darted above them. It was an explosion, an inundation, a blizzard of men from the sky, lasting less than five minutes.

The Paratrooper hits the ground and rolls into a proper landing fall. It is a good jump, a good landing. He looks up at the dense cloud of green parachutes, and he explodes with joy. "You are bea-u-ti-ful!" he screams. "Bea-u-ti-ful!"

Injuries had been expected to run as high as 1%, but the rate was less than half of that, only eleven in all; the most serious was a shoulder separation. All but 5% of the force landed on target and began moving out.

In the 92DEG Florida sun, the Paratrooper shoulders his 60-lb. rucksack and his M-16 rifle and joins his squad. The jump is a mere memory. Here on the ground, there is soldiering to do. --By Don Sider

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