Randy’s military training: paratrooper

As an eight year-old, we took Randy to the top of the John Hancock Building in Chicago to view the city. The moment the elevator doors opened to the wall of windows overlooking the city, he sat himself right down by the elevator door and refused to move a step closer to the window.
My husband never allowed fear to dictate his children’s actions. He got down to kid level and began talking and talking and talking. I left the two to work it out and walked around with his brother. I was ready to leave long before my husband coaxed his son away from the interior wall. An eternity later, the child relented, ventured over to touch the window and looked down at the ant-sized cars and the tops of sky scrapers below us. Soon he began running around, checking the view at all the windows.
That same son 10 years later signed up for the 82nd Airborne of the U.S. Army, promising to serve by as a paratrooper, jumping out of planes carrying all the equipment he would need on the field. Training left no time for his fears to send him to the wall.
“It was like everything else in the army. They ran you through everything so hard and so fast until you did it mechanically. They taught you how to land, how to roll. It was all broken down into steps and you had to practice every step until you did it mindlessly. After we could do it on the ground, we went up a tall tower on a zip line, and went down practicing all the steps. It was a really tall tower,” he recalls 30 years later.
“You never really get over the fear. You were always aware it was a dangerous thing you were doing, but there was no time to dwell on it. You had places where you practiced landing. They hook you up to a harness. You swung back and forth and practiced landing that way, until you could do it mindlessly,” Randy said.
Then and only then did the Army put the troops into a crowded, smelly plane for a real jump.
“They crammed everyone in and everyone had motion sickness. On the plane ride up, you would be throwing up on your neighbor but still all the time on the plane you would be doing checks. They had you stand up and check your equipment, hook up your line and then they would check you and you would have things you needed to do before you jumping – just like in practice except this time it was higher and you were on a plane,” he said.
“People say I was brave, but I never felt brave, I just did it because I was taught how to do it. I did not think about getting hurt. I just did the steps I needed to get the job done,” he said – including reporting any problems with his equipment.
“I carried $250,000 worth of radio equipment. Everything had to be correctly strapped up tight and cinched down. They spell it all out to you,” he recalled. Once he was ready, he had to walk a long ways across the tarmac to the plane. With equipment hanging below his knees, he said he could hardly walk.
One walk to the plane, he said something did not feel right. “I told my Safety (supervisor) ‘something is coming loose. I need you to check it. ‘”
The Safety checked.
“It’s good,” the guy assured Randy.
Again in the plane before the jump he asked the Safety to check the equipment, “I think my equipment is loose.”
Twice the Safety checked the equipment, pulled on the straps and looked at the fasteners. Twice more he said, “No, that’s good. It feels fine.”
So Randy prepared to take the jump.
“I stood up, hooked up, shuffled to the door and jumped, tucking my head like they taught us while going out the door. Four seconds later, after the chute released, I looked up to see that my chute was in good shape,” he said. The parachute was fine, but “out of the corner of my eye, I could see straps floating. All of my equipment was heading to the ground without me – $250,000 equipment. It hit the ground and kind of exploded as it cratered into the sand.”
From the top down the military wanted to know why they had just lost $250,000 worth of equipment. “We were the elite troop, one of the few with some of the stuff that we had,” Randy said.
“At first they wanted to get me in trouble for what happened. I told them I had them check it three times because something did not seem right.”
“They never said anything more to me about it,” he said. But, he also never again made the long walk to the plane. The procedure changed. The planes came to the guys wearing 70-100 pounds of chutes and expensive equipment.
Today, on Memorial Day, we think about all the men and women bearing the burden of protecting the country – those just performing as trained.
We also remember those who learned the drill, geared up and did everything right but did not return. Today we honor their sacrifice … and yes, their bravery.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)