My First Jump: Airborne Traini

It was a beautiful day at Fort Benning, Ga.; we were the soldiers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 507th Infantry Training Regiment, we made our first jump: bright blue sky, light-to-no wind, temperatures in the mid-60s. By day's end, many of us were still not airborne-qualified - it takes five school jumps to earn the Army's silver wings but you'd never know it from listening to us. We were all old pros after that first one, and each of us had an airbo

For me and the others, Ground Week and Tower Week were long gone. This was Monday, the first day of Jump Week, the last week of Airborne School. There were many of us students, about 210 in all; we were to make two more jumps on Tuesday. The first was with all our combat gear; the second was a mass exit, with us soldiers filing out of two doors at the same time. On Wednesday and Thursday, we were to combine what we learned both days before we did a mass exit jump with combat gear of Friday.

I was the first man out the door on the first plane over the drop zone. "It was nothing like I have ever experienced, this was scary," I said. "I'm still a little nervous; my heart's beating eight miles a minute."

"Show time," said the company's first sergeant as he walked out the front door of the shed. We filed out the back door, onto the runway and up the back ramps of the C-130s. Within an hour, we were back on the ground.

“It was great, better than I expected,” said Spec. Mark Cook, a signal soldier from Fort Bragg. "I'm ready to do it again four more times, at least." "I had no idea it would be so good," I said "I thought I was going to be scared, but I was so excited up there that I didn't really

Some topics in this essay:
McCarthy Hall, Rugged American, Training Regiment, Bragg I'm, Airborne School, Drum NY, Sergeant Airborne, Benning Ga, Mark Cook, Tower Week, mass exit, harness shed, day jump, combat gear, airborne school,