The United States Army Airborne School, widely known as “Jump School” is a rather arduous training school open to all branches of the military for members to attend. Most trainees who attend the paratrooper training at Fort Benning have a military discipline that requires them to have this type of skill set (e.g. Army Rangers, Marine Reconnaissance, or Air Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP)). I was a military intelligence G.M.T.I. analyst with no need for attending this training. But the opportunity arose and the three of us jumped at the chance to be “hooah” soldiers. In hindsight, it kind of makes sense for military intelligence soldiers who are assigned to airborne units to be jump qualified, but it’s definitely not a requirement. A lot of the trainees that were with us at Airborne School were Army, Marines, and a few Navy; I don’t remember meeting anyone from the Air Force there. Most of them were there for mission essential reasons, some of us weren’t. The main mission for airborne qualified military members is to jump out of aircrafts about 1,250 feet off the ground behind enemy lines or into combat areas to obtain key infrastructure before ground forces move in. Usually, these military units are Special Operations or infantry and are well equipped and trained for such a mission.
Airborne School is a three week physically demanding, mentally breaking training. Outside of day one in-processing, there’s absolutely no walking. Everywhere we went we were doing the “airborne shuffle”, which is a quick walk, slow jog, or running. The morning physical training sessions were long runs, incorporated with extraneous physical exercises (like log P.T.). Jump school felt like three weeks of constant physical exhaustion mixed with sleep depravity. It truly was the most difficult training I ever experienced while in the military, and one that almost broke me mentally and physically broke me. The schooling is made up of three weeks (ground week, tower week, and jump week), which has its own difficult situations in each week. But the first real test came the first morning with a physical fitness test.
Monday morning came bright and early, well before the sun was up, I believe somewhere around 0430. My watch alarm woke me up and the flash of bright light as someone turned the lights on made it all more realistic that it had begun. I hopped off the bunk and went to my wall locker to grab my personal hygiene bag to brush my teeth and shave. Like robots, everyone went through their morning routine like we’d been trained to do for almost nine months now. Georgia was hot and humid this time of year, with the occasional thunderstorms rolling through, sucking all the moisture out of the air afterwards, making it uncomfortable to breathe. I was already in my black Army shorts and short sleeve gray Army t-shirt, so I put my shoes on and headed downstairs with He*******, To***, and Or****. There were hundreds of military members already outside standing around. I don’t remember how each platoon was selected that first morning, but the four of us ended up in the same chalk together within the platoon; most likely by choice. A chalk is the row within the platoon (usually a squad in any other formation). For the remainder of the training we would be doing everything together within our chalk when necessary. Each chalk was assigned a leader, which was an officer (usually a second lieutenant (2LT) or first lieutenant (1LT)), and a second in command, which was usually the highest ranking enlisted member in the chalk. Our chalk leader was a first lieutenant in the Army and the highest ranking enlisted member was a Marine sergeant (E-5 Sgt). I don’t remember too much about the 1LT, but the Marine sergeant was really cool and laid back young N.C.O.. He had obviously been in the Marines for a few years and had way more military experience than the four of us. I believe he was part of a Marine Reconnaissance unit and Airborne School was a requirement for him. Since I couldn’t be in a leadership position, I took the third spot in the chalk, with Or**** two spots to my left; someone squeezed their way in right next to me somehow. He******* and To*** were somewhere to his left, but not far away. This is important to note, because this is the way we would exit the aircraft during Jump Week.
Slowly, one by one, the Airborne School instructors (the “Black Hats”) made their way down the long corridor of the two barracks buildings towards the CQ desk where they, the 1SG (first sergeant), and the company commander had their offices. Each time a Black Hat would enter the company area, someone in charge would have to yell out “at ease!” and everyone was to grow silent and get into the position of parade rest. Each Black Hat knew which platoon he would be leading and when ours came back out from the CQ area he called us to attention, gave us the “half-right, face” command, then “front leaning rest position, move” command, and the command to begin exercising. We pushed the ground until we were told to stop. I think that first morning, before anything had actually begun, we were dropped at least five times, knocking out over 200 push-ups. Our Black Hat wanted to have the strongest, most disciplined, platoon in the company. I think each platoon had three or four Black Hats assigned and in my humble opinion, we had the best group.
When it was time for Reveille to sound, everyone was called to attention and we rendered our salute to the sound of the bugle. I don’t think there was a flag flying directly in our barracks corridor, unless it was at the very end where the guidon would be, but if not, we would salute towards the sound of the bugle. Afterwards, our platoon Black Hat called out names for roll call, with voices in the shadows of the early morning yelling out “here!” to confirm their presence. It was the first morning and some names called went without a response. We later came to find out that most of those names were officers and the 1SG was so pissed they had missed the first formation that he expressed to everyone that they would be immediately kicked out of the course; which set a precedent for the next three weeks; there was no screwing around or your ass was gone. In all honesty, missing formation was unacceptable in any military setting; especially the first day of a training school. We were instructed to always show up fifteen minutes early to be on time, and being on time was being late. I think I remember the officers showing up later at some point, but they had already lost their opportunity and were sent back to where they had come from. Witnessing that and seeing how pissed off the 1SG was was probably the catalyst that sparked the fear in me moving forward throughout the course. I was there with friends and there was no way in hell I was going to fail this course.
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