history, and folklore of the unit that he has joined. Each of the brigades has a proud airborne combat history ranging from World War II to Desert Storm. Before long, the new trooper will have bonded with his fellow paratroops, his units, and the legend that is the airborne. He is now one of them.
All that’s left now is to test the new trooper. Seeing that combat is both a rare and potentially disastrous way to do this, the leadership of the Army sees to it that the 82nd (or at least some part of it) is included in almost every major field exercise being run around the world. From the Joint Task Force Exercises (JTFEX) supervised by U.S. Atlantic Command (USACOM) to the annual Bright Star multi-national war games run in Egypt, the 82nd is almost always there. In fact, a new 82nd trooper can probably count on being involved in at least three to four such exercises each year. These exercises are the closest thing to actual combat that a typical soldier will experience in his or her Army career. Tops among these exercises is a trip to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Structured much like the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, it is designed to give the infantry the same kinds of force-on-force and live-fire training experiences that armored units get at the NTC. All this is in addition to the other training and alert duties that the young trooper will be involved in.
It probably takes between twelve and eighteen months for the brigade to get a new trooper fully combat ready. But when they are finally finished, it is time to do something to enhance the career of the paratrooper. Sometimes this means promotion to a higher rank or position of responsibility. Most times, though, the process of enhancement involves sending the trooper off to school somewhere to improve professional skills and chances of promotion. From the standpoint of airborne operations, the most interesting of these schools are the Pathfinder and jumpmaster training schools, which teach advanced airborne warfare skills.
Advanced Schools: Pathfinder and Jumpmaster
When looking at airborne warfare, some folks focus upon the airborne delivery of paratroopers at the expense of fighting skills. This is not without reason. If you cannot get a unit and their gear safely on the ground, then the whole exercise of a combat airdrop will have been wasted.
Unfortunately, the individual skills taught at Jump School are just the beginning of the equation for putting airborne units safely on the ground. When the BAC students we watched at Fort Benning made their first jumps into the Fryar DZ, they did so into a well-controlled and surveyed area which is used regularly. Wartime drops are hardly like those into the Fryar DZ. If experience tells us anything, it is that the process of an airborne unit jumping into combat is barely organized chaos. From the German assault on Maleme Airfield on Crete, to the 82nd and 101st Airborne fighting in hedgerows behind the Normandy beachhead, DZs have been places that few paratroopers look upon with fond memories. It therefore makes sense that you need professionals to minimize the problems of jumping out of aircraft and into a DZ. The folks who make this happen are known as jumpmasters and Pathfinders.
Jumpmasters supervise both the loading and rigging of personnel, equipment, and supplies onto aircraft, and the actual jump/drop operation. They work closely with Air Force loadmasters and Army logisticians to maximize the effectiveness and safety of each airdrop sortie. On the flip side, Pathfinders are the folks who go into a field or other open space, and then survey and set it up for a parachute drop or air assault by helicopters. The Army maintains special schools for both jobs at Fort Benning, and we took the time to look at them both during our visit. Run by the 1/507th, both courses are designed to train officers and NCOs to become the supervisors or middle management of airborne operations. The folks who attend these schools already tend to be highly proficient in the technical aspects of airborne warfare, and want to know more. In particular, they are soldiers that understand the necessity of a small cadre of airborne troopers being able to internally run their operations, without outside interference or influence that might prove disastrous in some dark DZ on the other side of the world. You need special training to be able to coordinate activities like this, and Fort Benning is the place for those classes.
Actually there are two Jumpmaster Schools. The 1/507th runs one at Fort Benning, and the other is located at Fort Bragg. Both utilize the same course material. The Jumpmaster Course is run over a two-week period, and includes some ninety-four hours of classroom and field exercises. Each year about 1,200 personnel enter the course, though only 60 percent actually graduate. It is a tough course, with a lot of supporting academics and documentation required to complete it successfully. Each class is made up of between 26 and 50 students, though this number is dropping, much like BAC class size. In fact, only 1,000 students per year are programmed to take the class from now on. It is an exciting and cerebral kind of class. One that appeals to the academic and tinkerer in many paratroopers. I really like this course!
The core curriculum teaches the students how to package, rig, and load personnel, supplies, and equipment onto aircraft for delivery into a DZ. This may not sound overly difficult until you consider the variety of stuff that an airborne division like the 82nd can take with it into combat. Everything from food and water, to field hospitals and, of course, paratroops. All of these things need to be delivered safely, and the Jumpmaster School is where one acquires the knowledge. For example, there are over a dozen personal weapons containers that can be jumped by paratroops into battle. These are padded container rolls, which help protect a trooper’s personal weapons load during a jump and landing. The most common one fits the basic M16A2 combat rifle that is issued to most of the personnel in the 82nd. There are others, though. These include containers to carry mortars, light machine guns, and even guided missiles. In fact, the newest container, for the new Javelin antitank missile, was just being qualified for use during one of our early visits to Fort Bragg. The largest and most difficult container to handle is the one for the Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM). You have to be at least 5 feet 10/1.75 meters tall to jump with it. Each container, pallet, and load is a different loading and rigging challenge, though, and a qualified jumpmaster must know how to handle them all.
While the Jumpmaster Course sits at the technical extreme of airborne warfare, the Pathfinder program teaches more in the way of field skills. Back in World War II, Pathfinders were the elite of the airborne, dropped in prior to combat jumps to mark the drop zones and provide scouting. Today they do a similar job, though their tools and procedures are far more advanced than those of their World War II brethren. It should be noted, though, that not all the Pathfinder students are paratroopers. In fact, a large percentage of Pathfinders are assigned to airmobile and air cavalry (helicopter) units, since they also use landing zones (LZ) for their operations. Overall, the Pathfinder Course teaches the following skills:
• The technical expertise to plan and execute air movements, air assaults, airborne and air resupply missions for either fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft.
• Preparing air mission and briefing documents, as well as being able to support theater-level air tasking orders.[20]
• Controlling and executing DZ and helicopter LZ operations.
• Performing sling-load and other loading/unloading operations.
• Acting as part of an Air Force Combat Control Team (CCT).
• Conducting DZ/LZ area surveys.
• Controlling and certifying other personnel as DZ/LZ support personnel.
The Pathfinder Course is taught in 165.6 hours of instruction at Fort Benning over three weeks. While a BAS certification is not required to take the Pathfinder Course, it is a busy and highly physical curriculum nevertheless. A great deal of field work is carried on during the course, and severely taxes the endurance of even veteran paratroops. Only 618 officers and NCOs are allowed to take the course each year, though the graduation rate of around 82 percent means about 540 new Pathfinders each year for the Army. Each class (there are thirteen each year) is made up of between 24 and 48 students. It is a tough class, but the high graduation rate tells a lot about the professionalism of the “Black Hats” that run the course.
Conclusion
The training that we have discussed in this chapter is really just a small slice of what the people within the 82nd Airborne receive during their careers as soldiers. Nevertheless, I think that we have focused on the specific things that make paratroopers unique in a world crowded with folks who wear uniforms. Airborne troopers are
