Đọc truyện Killed in Action - A Spy School Story

♥ AzTruyen.Top - Trang đọc truyện hoàn toàn miễn phí!

Chapter 17: Airborne

Trước Sau

Màu nền

Font chữ

Font size

Chiều cao dòng

Fort Benning, GA

Nov 25, 2018

1400R

There's an old saying about Jump School: "In Ground Week, they separate the men from the boys. In Tower Week, they separate the men from the fools. In Jump Week, the fools jump."

And now, I was one of those fools.

We loaded up into a C-17 at Lawson Army Airfield and were flying for our drop zone: the Fryar DZ, named after Private Elmer E. Fryar, a soldier of the 11th Airborne Division during World War II. He single-handedly held off an enemy platoon that was trying to flank his company, helped a wounded man to the rear, took a sniper's bullet meant for his platoon leader, then killed the same sniper with a hand grenade before succumbing to his wounds. His actions would earn him a posthumous Medal of Honor, along with Fryar Field, which was our DZ.

All in all... a bonafide badass.

Anyways, we were about to execute the first of five jumps that would be occurring during Jump Week: four day jumps and one night jump. The pilots were going to get us up to a little over 1,200 feet (1,250, I think) at around 113 knots (130 mph for you non-aviators or sailors). Once the crewmen squared everything away, our jumpmasters would get us up and out of the bird.

The "Black Hats," our instructors, were wearing their Kevlars (er, helmets) like the rest of us, not donning the covers (hats) that they were generally known for. They helped us get prepped for the jump, checking our rigs after we checked each other. And of course, they had a hilarious sense of humor.

"What if our main and reserve fail?" one student asked.

"You've got the rest of your life to figure it out," Staff Sergeant Malkovich, one of the Black Hats, quipped.

It took every bit of bootcamp discipline I had to not bust out laughing like a clown.

They also loved picking on everyone, especially non-Army boys. While it's formally known as Army Airborne School, it accepts personnel from all branches, even allowing ROTC students and allied military personnel to join in. My class didn't have any foreign exchange or ROTC students, from what I could tell, but we did have quite a few non-soldiers: myself, a dozen other Marines, fifteen PJ candidates, and a half-dozen SEAL candidates.

You're probably not batting an eye at the PJ and SEAL prospects: they definitely end up jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. So what were the Marines doing there? Well, I got lucky—I put in a packet and it made it through. The others were Recon Marines that were slotted into joining their platoons' jump teams.

Curious... I'm just an infantryman, and our main aerial insertion thing is vertical assault—or like the Army calls it, "air assault..." for reasons I can't figure out—so how the hell did my freakin' packet make it through? The extra pay is nice, so I ain't complainin' but...

In the end, I could only chalk it up to some craziness outside of my control. Remember, I managed to get back-to-back deployments (without going home) and transferred between I to II MEF in the scope of two years thanks to some paperwork errors, so getting a slot in Jump School as a lowly infantryman wasn't too surprising.

There was one problem though: you didn't hear this from me, but me and heights... we don't get along too well. Yes, I was able to pick up skiing decently well during the Colorado op, but... now that we were up in the air, I realized the severity of the situation: I was entrusting my life to a big ole piece of military-grade canvas. And for those that don't know: military-grade gear is oftentimes crap.

Humvees? You go over 55 mph and you feel like your innards are going to rattle out of your sphincter.

Chinooks? From my interactions with Army aircrewmen, if nothing's leaking, then there's a problem.

And the F-35... we don't talk about the F-35.

Okay, the issue ain't the heights... it's gotta be the chute. Yeah, those riggers are pros, but the dern chute... hell, I don't trust this milspec crap.

It always makes me laugh when I hear people acting like military-grade things are the best there is... because it ain't by a long shot, despite what journalists will tell you. I mean, cops end up getting some surplus equipment from us like radios, rifles, vehicles, medkits, and body armor in order to save taxpayer dollars (so they can use money towards drilling and manpower—the supermajority of police departments are undermanned), not because "milspec" stuff is any better than the items on the civilian market. That MRAP your local SWAT team has? It cost them $0-3,000 to get from the DoD, whereas a traditional BearCat (which is purpose-built for law enforcement officers) is around $180,000. The cammies? That's probably because the department works in a rural area or because they're too underfunded to afford high-quality, LEO-specific uniforms like the freaking FBI.

Good Lord, I hate the media...

That military-grade rant aside, it appeared as though the aircrew had finished its final pre-drop and slow-down checklist, and it was just about time for us to begin. I was nearest to the portside paratroop door, meaning I'd be the first man in my stick (group) to step out of the aircraft.

Oh crud, oh crud, oh crud, oh crud, oh crud...

"TEN MINUTES!!" SSG Malkovich bellowed over the roar of the engines, holding up ten fingers to visually complement his yells.

"TEN MINUTES!!" we shouted back.

"GET READY!!"

"OUTBOARD PERSONNEL, STAND UP!!"

"OUTBOARD PERSONNEL, STAND UP!!"

Since I was one of the troops in the outermost rows, I stood, my head nearly hitting the anchor line that was meant to eventually trigger our chutes. Folding up my seat, I stood, weighted down by my main chute on my back, my reserve chute on my front, my weapons in a bag on the side of my waist, and my other miscellaneous gear in a bag between my legs. We weren't doing an unloaded Hollywood jump, but a fully equipped combat jump—paratroopers jump with a lot of kit.

"INBOARD PERSONNEL, STAND UP!!"

"INBOARD PERSONNEL, STAND UP!!" the two innermost rows shouted, standing upright and folding their seats.

"HOOK UP!!" SSG Malkovich shouted.

"HOOK UP!!" we all repeated, hooking our universal static line to the anchor line.

"CHECK STATIC LINES!!"

"CHECK STATIC LINES!!" Each man formed a bite in the universal static line modified, ensuring he had a good four in the hand and two below the bite. Every jumper traced the line modified over the appropriate shoulder and covered his ripcord handle with his nonstatic line hand. Myself and the first two jumpers behind me also raised our arms in the elbow-lock position to create a one-second interval, while the remaining jumpers held their arms up high, staggering inboard and outboard.

"CHECK EQUIPMENT!!" SSG Malkovich yelled.

"CHECK EQUIPMENT!!" we responded. There was nobody in front of me to check, so I tried to double-check that the gear hanging off my front was squared away while the dude behind me checked my chute and gear, after which he gave me the "seal of approval:" a tap on the hip/ass area (because it's basically the only part of you that isn't covered in gear).

"SOUND OFF FOR EQUIPMENT CHECK!!"

"OKAY!!" each student shouted with an accompanying tap, starting at the rear of the stick before it finally made its way up to me, at which point I shouted "ALL OKAY, SERGEANT, AIRBORNE!!"

"FUCKIN' A, MOUNT-BILLY!!" SSG Malkovich replied, invoking his nickname for me—get it? I'm a big country boy? Mountain? Hillbilly? Mount-billy?

Honestly, not the worst thing I've ever been called.

As the jumpmasters and other instructors did some more checking, the Air Force crewmen opened the paratroop doors, and I could feel the chilly air... just like they referenced in "Blood on the Risers." The jumpmasters then stood in each doorway, ensuring the DZ was clear and there were no problems that would keep us from jumping.

On the side of the aircraft walls, a red light shone... not very bright, but it was definitely red—we couldn't jump yet, but we were certainly about to. My grip on the bite in my static line tightened as I took several deep breaths, praying to the Lord that my chute didn't malfunction... I wanted to win my little game of patty-cake with the planet, thank you very much.

"STAND BY!!" SSG Malkovich bellowed.

"STAND BY!!" we shouted back over the roar of the C-17—everyone sounded a little nervous. I made eye contact with the safety, whose job was to take control of the universal static lines modified while we put both hands on the ends of our reserves. I remembered what the Black Hats said: "upon exiting the aircraft, snap into a good tight body position. Keep your eyes open, chin on your chest, elbows tight into your sides, hands on the end of the reserve (fingers spread), bend forward at the waist, KEEP YOUR FUCKING FEET AND KNEES TOGETHER, hands locked in the rear, and count to six thousand."

If I forget that bit about keepin' feet an' knees together, they're gonna tear into me like Pitbulls with steaks.

And then came the fated green light.

"GO, GO, GO!!" SSG Malkovich shouted. Falling back on my training, I pretended as though we were back on the tower: turn at a 90-degree angle into the door and just walk out with a spring in your step. And with a "seal of approval" from SSG Malkovich, I did just that. One minute I was aboard the bird, the next minute I was outside of it, completely at the mercy of the chutes and the riggers who packed them.

One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand, five-one thousand, six-one thou—

I felt a jolt that interrupted my train of thought: I had a good canopy above my head. I was in the clear. Now, all I had to do was wait until I hit the ground. I was the first man out, so I couldn't see the rest of my stick, but I could definitely see the first man of the starboard-side stick if I craned my neck. But apart from that, I was over a thousand feet up, descending not like a leaf or like a meteorite... more like a supply drop.

Damn... it's nice up here.

Over the roar of the C-17's engines, I could hear the incoherent screeches of some of my fellow students, who weren't too happy about the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good plane, even if it meant an extra $150 per month. I quickly tuned out the screeches as I looked around the sunny Georgian wilderness, spying the Fryar DZ below. Apart from the scaredy-cats behind me (I couldn't blame them, though), it was fairly peaceful. I was beginning to see why people parachuted for fun. It wasn't just an adrenaline rush, it was freaking gorgeous from upstairs.

"IT'S RAIIIINING MEN!! HALLELUJAH, IT'S RAIIIINING MEN!! AMEN!!" one student somewhere behind me began singing—the SEAL candidate nicknamed "Hollywood," I believe, known for his sick hair and ability to charm the ladies (even throwing a pickup line at a female Black Hat, getting himself smoked), though he was also extremely scared of heights. Hollywood would often sing to calm his nerves (whether quietly or loudly like this), and it didn't surprise me that that was his song of choice.

He ain't wrong though.

Of course, it only got even more insane when a few other students joined Hollywood in loudly singing as we somewhat gently plummeted to Earth. But as hilarious as it was, there was only one song I could sing... a song I learned, interestingly enough, from my great-grandfather on Pa's side: Sergeant Major Jedediah Carter Schacter, who made all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in World War II (Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, and Holland... plus a fifth combat jump with the 101st Airborne's Rakkassans in Korea). And as I progressed throughout the song, my voice got louder and prouder as I remembered the history of my forefathers, the brave men who pioneered paratrooping, the warriors who saved the world from an evil unlike this world had ever seen.

https://youtu.be/5HtVYr9aKRM

[Author's Note: I highly recommend you play the music and sing along!]

He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,

He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight.

He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,

You ain't gonna jump no more!