Posted on 10/07/2011 2:18:00 PM PDT by Dusty Road
Dozens of U.S. Army paratroopers have been hurt during a massive airborne drop in Germany. Sixteen of the 47 injured men are still in hospital, two of them in intensive care after the jump involving 1,000 soldiers went terribly wrong. They suffered head, spine and pelvic injuries.
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Prayers for our brave men and women! God bless them!
Thanks for your service. Sorry to hear about your buds.
I remember reading in Chuck Yeager’s autobiography about him breaking his tailbone jumping onto a frozen beach in South Korea.
Basically he was counting on a soft surface and it ended up being more like concrete.
There was a incident years ago where some SF guys (SEALs or SAS, cant recall) all drowned during a night mission because they wanted too long to pull their chutes.
Paratroopers have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Had some Air National Guard pilots drop us over the trees at Taylor Creek DZ one time. Not fun!
“But the military said that they would not be staging an inquiry into what happened because the injury rate was “acceptable”.
Civilian spokeswoman for the Joint multinational Training Command, which is under U.S. Army command, Denver Makle, said as the numbers injured ‘was within expected margins’ an investigation was not necessary.”
The article says the number of injuries was normal for such a large paratrooper operation....yikes!
“is this normal??”
I guess it is when you drop 650 guys.
Bump!
Prayers for their swift recovery.
Stand up! Hook up! Shuffle to the door.
5.56mm
Too low with too much gear is my guess.
Possibly unqualified jumpers as well.
Mass drops often involve mass mayhem.
Heavens. I hope the injured have a speedy and uneventful recovery.
The D-Day landing was carried out with an expected 70% casualty rate with as much as 90% considered acceptable as long as the beachhead was secured. Fortunately much of the German defense was smoke a mirrors. I think the over all casualty rate was around 20%.
If they hadn’t secured the beachhead they would have been stranded anyway because there was no real plan to move thousands of men back to the ships.
It is not clear from the report what went wrong. If it wasn’t wind (you really do not want to jump in a high wind condition) then the pilot missed the drop zone.
Our prayers goes out for all that were injured and their family.
I was with the 173rd Abn back in 1965 in Viet Nam. Being a paratrooper is a dangerous business, but that is just what you do to get to the really dangerous business, fighting the enemy.
I just read a couple of days ago in “Seal team Six” Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper by Howard Wasdin and Stephen Templin, about one of their missions that a couple of guys drowned because something happened with the shoots when they hit water.
Prayers up for our fine men and women who’ve suffered in any way , shape or form by serving our Country ~
All Paratroopers know that Trees along the edge of a “Drop Zone” are not their friends. They will do Damn Near anything to avoid them.
Hell a Thousand guy’s out at the same time with only 47 casualties Not Bad.!
You want real chaos dump them out on a moonless night.
I can still scare myself with thoughts of that one.
Geronimo.
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