What parachuting feels like...

So I waited for five hours all rigged up, my helmet, parachute, reserve parachute, rifle case under my left arm, rucksack dangling off my beltline in front of my knees. The harness shed where all four hundred and sixty something of us sat and waited in near silence. I say near silence because we were supposed to be quiet and weren't supposed to sleep, we did both a little bit but pretty much followed the rules.

It finally got dark outside, seven thirty at night the C130 fired up out behind the shed, props catching all that air and everyone on my bench grew smiles because we knew that meant we were close to our last jump. I smiled and nodded at my buddy, we both looked outside and tried to think of what it was gonna be like jumping out of an airplane with nothing but the moonlight to see by.

We finally filed out to the plane, bright eyed despite being about fourteen hours into our workday already. The prop blast walking behind the plane was awful, tasted like fuel and dirt and burned the back of my throat when I breathed in. Got inside and jammed our way to our seats, no room between the benches facing each other, the black hat had to run across our rucks strapped on our laps to get to the back and count everyone out. I was number 3 on the second pass.

After we flew for an enormously longer amount of time than the previous four jumps they finally called out the ten minutes mark. I smiled pretty big, the green lights in the plane reflected off of helmets and men and gear and I was about to hurl myself out of a plane going about 120 knots 1250 feet off the ground.

We stood up after the first stick had jumped, I was close enough to the door that I could see tiny dots of orange lights, streetlamps, passing pretty quickly beneath us. The red light on the jump door was glaring. The green light was even more so.

"GO!"

And we went, one, two, three, then me. I planted my left foot on the ledge, jumped off it and kicked with my other leg. The prop blast grabbed me and threw me behind the plane, the moon jounced and flew all over my field of vision and then bam... I was floating hundred of feet above the earth, a nice green canopy above me. I could see the drop zone sliding away to my front and left so I slipped towards it hoping to stop me from swinging back and forth like I was. The wind was steady but nothing crazy.

Relatively good I relaxed a little bit, looked out across all the lights and trees and stars and big empty sky, all the other dark forms suspended by green canopies. I looked down and seeing no one beneath me I dropped my rucksack, it fell to the end of the ten foot hook pile tape lowering line, I grabbed for the weapons case quick release... didn't find it, kind of panicked, looked some more, the ground below seemingly getting closer and closer... grabbed some more to no avail.

"Remember if you forget to drop your ruck or your weapons case or in fact, both, pull your two-riser slip and ride it out..."

So that's what I did, however many feet away from the ground I shrugged, let go of the weapons case, grabbed my two front risers and pulled them down to my reserve. They tell you to pull them to your name tape level, well farther down the better I figured, it was supposed to slow your fall.

THUD!

My rucksack hit the ground, I tensed my legs thinking "GROUND" then relaxed when it took longer than a second to hit. I PLF'd (Parachute Landing Fall) like a champ and could only feel the bruise that had been building up on my left side since the first week. I don't remember if I landed on the weapons case, I must have but I didn't sustain any injury from doing so. Oh well huh?

Then I did three things, said "And that's 5" out loud, kissed the ground while my head still hummed from the being in the plane, and lastly thanked God that I'd made it safely through all five jumps. Then I just laid there knowing that I probably wouldn't get to experience this again in my lifetime and that I should take some time to appreciate it. I did.

I gathered all my stuff and then realized I had no idea which way I was supposed to go to get back to everyone. So I found the nearest dude walking and went with him. Fortunately he spotted a set of red lights off in the distance about a half mile away, the opposite side of the drop zone, and we aimed for them, they turned out to be the brake lights on the bus.

It took us a while to get back and halfway there the C130 came flying over, dropping another 30 men to the ground. They drifted right in our direction so we stopped and watched to make sure we didn't get landed on or caught up in someone's chute. A guy was dropping about thirty feet in front of us, my buddy hollered at him to pull his slip.

THUD!

We both kind of chuckled because, we had told him to pull his slip...

"AHHHH!!!"

That went on until we came up on him and asked him what was up, he said he landed all wrong on his leg but it wasn't broken. So we shrugged and he got up, then we parted ways. Hey you gotta do what you gotta do right? And yes, plenty of women made it through jump week, most without injuries, actually I don't think the women that did jump sustained any injuries. I heard one chick was booted from the plane. The jumpmaster told her he was going to sit her down and when she let go of the doorframe he literally kicked her out of the plane. Hey, it worked.

A couple of guys broke legs, one marine officer broke his ankle, there's plenty of people limping, including me. We got to the place where we meet up, I checked in, ate some food then I pulled all my equipment close to me and fell asleep. I woke up around twelve thirty, absolutely freezing, my ankle had taken that time to build up all it's hate and energy at having been abused the last couple of weeks and throbbed like crazy and if I moved it wrong it shot pain up my leg that was sharp enough to kind of irritate me.

We finally loaded onto the bus and headed back to the harness shed. I stowed my gear, checked in my reserve chute then we formed up again and waited for our 2 buses to ferry all four hundred and some of us back to the barracks. It was 2 in the morning when I got back but all we'd eaten the last three days were crappy MRE's and Jimmy Deans so me and my buddies went down to a place called Krystal and ate some really crappy burgers they said were awesome. Dude's, they were crappy burgers. But the company was good.

Around four o'clock I finally got back and fell asleep, still feeling pretty good about my pretty sweet accomplishment.

So as best as I can describe it that's what parachuting feels like...

-Owen