Posted on 10/07/2011 2:18:00 PM PDT by Dusty Road
Hohenfels is notorious for ground fog this time of year. If they dropped into it, anything could have happened.
That’s the truth. Soldiering is dangerous work. That is why they get to retire before age forty in many cases. Heck, at thirty I was too banged up to continue.
"Can you imagine the aerial chaos from several hundred guys zooming all around trying to hit a small DZ -- especially at night?"
that was in the early hours of the Grenada invasion. The SEALS halo jumped into the sea with too much gear in their packs and I think they sunk.
Broke mine once, it involved too many Harveywallbangers, a lot of snow, one of my kids snow disc and my Siberian Husky. Hurt like the dickens the next day, could hardly get out of bed. But when I broke it, I didn’t feel any thing except the driveway, missed the disc after the dog started to run. When I went to the doctor, he asked my what I was doing after seeing the Xrays, and when I told him, he actually said, Oh well, don’t do that again....cannot do anything for a broken tail bone (coccyx) My neighbor made a mean Harveywallbanger....
I agree with you, it "is a dangerous business". It is even more dangerous jumping out of a C-141. During the Viet Nam war I was a C-141 driver. As such we practiced drops during normal conditions and for combat simulated conditions.
Our normal drop height was 1100 feet and for combat simulated drops it was 900 feet. I always gave the troops an extra 100 feet and told them the extra height was for their wife and family. They liked that.
Don't remember any jumps where we didn't have at least some broken bones.
Terribly sad but this is why they do practices and simulations. Hopefully, nothing life changing.
My hat is off and my heart goes out to our troops!!
My niece’s husband was one of those injured—though he is not one of those in ICU. Both my niece and her husband are members of the 173rd Airborne.
1/503rd 1965 - 1966 Bien Hoa
My Brother!
I made a few jumps out of the C-141 but they were not as scary as off the back ramp of a C-130. There is a point as you are going out you lose sight of the plane and it becomes the highest high dive platform in the world.
It was dangerous but I would do it all over again.
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