While in the 82nd Airborne Division, we always checked the log book which is tucked in the shoulder harness of each parachute for the name of the parachute rigger. If you got a Mickey Mouse of Donald Duck, that chute was tossed aside for investigation. Trust is integral to a paratroopers mission. If I did not think my parachute would work, I would not have jumped over a 100 times on active duty, because that spare parachute has a user decision making process window of about 3-4 seconds on a training jump. If you are going in hot, you hop and pop and hit the ground faster than you could reasonably pull your spare chute.
I remember going down to 3d Brigade from the Div HHC to do a strap hanger night jump. I was an E7 and the IG NCOIC Assistance and Investigations. The pre-jump and trip down to green ramp and sitting on bird before the jump took about five hours and I struck up a warm conservation with a Captain. The next morning someone asked me at work if I heard about the guy whose static line was cut and he died before he could pull his reserve chute... it was the captain. I wish I could remember his name for I was the last person on earth he conversed and spoke to before he died. He and I checked each others equipment but there is not way to check the Static Line in the middle of the chute inside. Trust. I trusted him and he trusted me and we trusted the Assistant JMs and Jump Masters who were also double checking our equipment; we trusted the equipment even though we all knew there was some Bastard that was Cutting the Static Lines in Parachutes. They caught the guy but hundreds of chutes were unpacked and repacked looking for this murder’s work. Several other troopers from the Division escaped death using their reserves during that period of time. This incident happened in 87-89 tunefrane, but it had happened before in 74, and 75-76.
Needless to say I was directed up the Division Chapel for the Captain’s Memorial Service. Highly shined Jump Boots with an M16 Bayonet/Muzzle down with his Helmet was front and center, as is customary when we lose a brother in arms. It is all the more personal when you know the person who was murdered by an unseen Parachute Rigger.
On a lighter note, my first night jump back after returning from Korea in Jan 85, I literally was knocked out. It is night and you hit the ground and there is this Brilliant Flash. Sometime later you wake up tangled in your static lines and equipment, fumbling around in the dark trying to gather yourself and get your A$$ to the turn in point and on a truck back to the Division area from the drop zone. The next morning I became dizzy and was personally afraid something was very very wrong. I tried to walk thru the door and I hit the right side side of the door frame, backed up hit the left side and then missed my chair in front of the Colonel and his Secretary. I was sent to the Hospital and they in turn handed me over to the Dental Unit to irrigate my ears for sand. Yup, I had a left ear packed with sand from hitting my head the night before. It was funny. Even after the sand out my body and head hurt, but it was still funnier than hell, as we used to say.
Thanks for you service, from a leg.
ATW, Brother
“a strap hanger night jump. “
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Wow.
Two thoughts, or rather memories flashed through my mind’s eye as I read your post.
First, it reminded me of NCIS’s Season 1 Episode 2. A murder centered around a jumper whose chute was deliberately screwed with by the chute packer. I remember thinking as still think when I view that episode that it must be hard trusting someone who you’ve never met.
The second, is of an event related by a Pastor whose name I cannot recall for the life of me. He talked about one of his jumps and spoke of a chute that didn’t open and of the chute packer’s intense grief that a man lost his life because of something overlooked. Chute packers know they have lives in their hands (literally), and for true and honest chute packers it’s an extremely serious job. This poor guy just cracked, knowing a man was dead because a chute he packed didn’t open.
I recall the 2nd story because the pastor spoke of Jesus as being the person we would be trusting with our souls, like a jumper would physically trust the chute packer.
The 2nd story about the chute not opening is what I heard many years before the Season 1 Episode 2 of NCIS. Still, viewing the episode really brought back memories of that sermon.
Wow, what a read!
Thank you for the detail ....and heartrending story of the captain.
Hard to grasp someone would intentionally cut a line.......but there are evil folks everywhere, even in combat, sadly
Amazing story. Thanks for that. I can’t begin to fathom a US serviceman actively sabotaging parachutes. It is beyond my mental capacity to accept. But it happened. What pure caustic evil. Special place in hell for him. What could possibly motivate such evil?
“This incident happened in 87-89 timefrane, but it had happened before in 74, and 75-76.”
I was with the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg in the mid/late 1970s and recall the incident that occurred around ‘77 or ‘78. I believe that the rigger/perp was in fact finally caught.