Airborne School

[matthewcline 0]

I remeber when Bryan went to try outs. I also remember the fellow doing push ups (my company was doing the SLT, aka slam dunk that morning). Itwas funny Eric, Bryan didn't tell any of us about the tears, I wish I knew that yesterday while having lunch with him. he is back running the "Wings" as you know.

Chuck, maybe Doogie was refering to the 75th guys in the ao doing PT and such?

It was Oct '86 (FY '87) when they went to the 1/507th and renamed the companies. I went in Jan '87 and they all made the "Branch" reference slip up from time to time.

Yesterday the School did a "double" fill. Picked up 2 companies at once (700 + students), and yep they are doing the PT test.

Matt

"Forced in, left out"

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[steve1 5]

I went through jump school in the Spring of 1970, after doing basic and infantry training at Ft. Polk. I felt like I had died and had gone to heaven when I arrived at Benning. The accomodations there were a lot nicer than Polk...Ft. Bragg was even nicer yet.

The P.T. part didn't wasn't too tough. We ran about three or four miles at a slow pace each day. I think it was 7 or 8 pull ups. Nothing too difficult.

I had some trouble on the 34 ft. tower, though. My elbows weren't tight into my sides and my hands weren't quite in the right place. So, I went out of that thing about a thousand times. I was actually bloody behind both ears from riser slap. That was back in the old days when everyone wore steel pots. Maybe the new kevlar helmets will offer more protection from that sort of thing.

Learn to do a good PLF. I sprained the hell out of my ankle on the first jump. My knees weren't tight together, like I was trained to do, and twisted it bad. I didn't want to be recycled so I made four more on it before going on sick call. In jump week you'll go on a short run every morning, and the Black Hats will look for anyone limping. That's why I got in the middle of the formation and tried not to limp when the Black Hats were watching. Actually you'll get plenty of practice on PLF's, and it was my own fault I got hurt.

I recall another time before jump school when we were in a big tent receiving some training from an instructor who had jump wings on. This was down in Tiger Land at Ft. Polk. Most of the instructors there were fresh back from "Nam" and most of them had kind of a wild look in their eye.

One of our group of trainees, said that many of us were "airborne" because we were going to jump school soon. I guess he was trying to build up some Brownie points with our instructor since he was "airborne" too.

About then the sargent barked back, "Boy"...You aren't airborne until you've made five jumps, out of an aircraft, while in "FRIGHT"! We all got a good chuckle out of this.

Actually, I loved jump school. It was the first school that I graduated from where I felt like I had really accomplished something and reinforced the idea that someday I wanted to be a skydiver......Steve1