carried by combat jumpers. During early training jumps, though, some jumpers can actually be too lightly loaded. Some of the smaller students, particularly the female ones, are so light that their parachutes can actually rise in a strong updraft! We saw this happen several times in the horrible August heat, and were amazed that it took sometimes five minutes for these jumpers to reach the safety of the ground.
The C-141 was able to drop thirty-two students during the first pass on Fryar DZ, then banked left to set up for another run. With a capacity of over a hundred jumpers, it would take at least five runs to empty out the back end of the Starlifter. But before the C-141 could return for another run, the C-130 we had seen on the ramp zoomed down and dumped about half of its load of student troopers onto the DZ. Other C-130s began to enter the pinwheel of airplanes around the DZ. For the next hour or so, a big Air Force transport would lay down another stick or chalk of students for the first jump of their Army Airborne career about every two minutes.
Down in Fryar DZ, we watched as Major Street and the student jumpers came down along the road that runs down the centerline of the DZ, which constituted their aimpoint. Major Street was the first down, hitting the ground within yards/meters of the personal point of impact near the DZSO’s HMMWV. Once on the ground, he reported to the DZSO to let him know about the wind conditions as well as the vicious thermal that was creating severe updrafts for some jumpers at the lower end of the zone. Along the road, Black Hat instructors were coaching the students down during the final phase of their descent. As each student neared the ground, Black Hats urged them to set up for a good PLF position. Most seemed to do well, and no injuries were suffered by the almost three hundred jumpers who would hit the silk that afternoon for the first time. This is not always true, though. Landing injuries are common in the airborne, and a loss of 3 to 5 percent of personnel to broken legs and sprained ankles and backs in a combat jump is common. Today’s jump was perfect, except for the heat. As soon as they hit the ground, each student gathered up the parachute canopy, stuffed it into a large green aviator kit bag, dropped it at a collection point for return to Company E, and cleared out of the DZ to board buses back to Fort Benning. For all concerned, it was a good day.
In the four remaining days of BAC, the students would jump four more times. Each jump would be progressively more difficult, requiring more of each student to complete the exercise successfully. By Thursday night, except in the event of a weather delay or physical injury makeup, the students would have all but finished Jump School. They would have turned in their equipment and practiced for their graduation parade, and would be packing their personal gear for the trip to their next assignment post. All that is really left at this point is the graduation parade and ceremony. At this celebration, each BAC graduate is awarded the paratrooper wings that are so prized by their owners. Later that same day, they will head down the road to their new life in the airborne. They will have joined an elite few in the military forces of the United States and the rest of the world. And no matter what they may do, or what their future in the Army is, they will always be paratroopers. However, from the point of view of the 82nd Airborne Division back at Fort Bragg, the job of making the paratrooper is only half done when they graduate from BAS. While Jump School teaches skills and hardens the mind and body, it does nothing per se to make the students better warriors in their chosen MOS. The rest of what makes a paratrooper tough happens when they come through the gate to Fort Bragg.
To the 82nd: Duty on the Line
Since there are relatively few jump-capable units left in the post-Cold War U.S. Army, it is likely that any newly frocked paratroopers will start their airborne careers at 82nd Airborne. The 82nd, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is the one division-sized unit of its type still left, and every paratrooper spends at least some time assigned there. Most new paratroopers going to the 82nd wind up at one of the division’s three airborne brigade task forces. These three units, each built around a reinforced parachute infantry regiment (the 504th, 505th, or 325th), comprise the bulk of the 82nd’s mass and strength, and are where most airborne troopers choose to spend their careers. It is in these three brigades that the final job of polishing and finishing new paratroopers is accomplished. Jump School may teach the skills of how to enter a battlefield by parachute, but the esprit de corps that makes an airborne trooper a lethal weapon of national policy is instilled by the various units of the 82nd. All too often, people fixate on the delivery method of airborne troops, and forget that they need to fight once they are safely on the ground. Often alone, cold, hungry, and scared, these troopers must fight to their objectives, no matter what the odds. In short, they need to be taught the meaning of “All the Way” (the official paratrooper motto), and LGOP (little groups of paratroopers).
Now, let us suppose that a new paratrooper (in this case an infantryman) has joined one of the infantry units of 1st Brigade/504th Parachute Regiment. Following in-processing, the young man (only males are currently allowed by law in front-line combat units) will probably be assigned to an infantry platoon within one of the brigade’s three battalions. Once settled in his new home, he’s thrown into the fire of airborne life with the 82nd. This includes the eighteen-week alert cycle, as well as a lot of training and numerous field exercises.
It is these last two points that the 82nd uses to help make a new paratrooper into a useful device of war. Train and exercise. Train and exercise. Train and exercise. By the time a paratrooper finishes his first tour of duty with the 82nd, he’ll probably both love and hate these words. Love because these are the things that a soldier goes into the Army to do. Hate because they take that soldier away from his home and family. However, these are the things that they do to get and remain combat ready.
The training schedule for a combat paratrooper is impressive. The morning PT runs that started at Jump School are still there, and running at Fort Bragg is just as challenging as at Fort Benning. General Keane (who we met in the previous chapter) has made a point of emphasizing the need for more physical fitness within the units of XVIII Airborne Corps in general, and the 82nd in particular. Every morning and evening, either in formation or alone, you see troopers running to cadence around the post to stay fit and tough. Along with staying fit, there is weapons and tactics skills training. It is a matter of some discomfort to the Army leadership that the Marines tend to establish and maintain their combat skills earlier and at a higher level than comparable Army units. The one real exception to this rule is the airborne. Because of the necessarily high level of readiness associated with their forced-entry missions, they must be trained as well as, or maybe even better than, their Marine counterparts. This means that shooting skills, always a weak point in average soldiers, is heavily emphasized in airborne units. Rather than hosing down a target with bursts of fire from an M16 or M249 SAW, the airborne prefers their troopers to focus on single shots or short bursts to conserve vital ammunition that might have to be resupplied via airdrop.
The leadership within the 82nd is similarly fanatical about developing other combat skills ranging from land navigation in darkness and poor weather, to cross-training on heavy weapons like machine guns, mortars, and antitank missiles. There also are plenty of assault drills in Fort Bragg’s combat town (an urban-warfare training facility) and field simulation areas, as well as all-night forced-march training.
Somewhere in all of this training, the new paratrooper is also indoctrinated with something of the tradition,
