NIGHT JUMP!

At reveille that morning we had been advised by our platoon Sergeant that our company was scheduled for a practice jump that night at 2200 hrs.  The drop zone was to be an abandoned Japanese airstrip.  Uniform was full field gear, weapons and ammo.  Since this was a practice jump we were to simply gather up our parachute and report to a marshaling area that would be designated later at our squad level briefing.
That evening after Taps and chow we loaded up on deuce and a half trucks for the ride to Naha Air Force base.  For anyone watching us we would have appeared different from other GI’s.  We talked very little and when we did it was quietly.  Our movements were deliberate and ordered.  There was an air of disciplined superiority about us.  We were United States Army Paratroopers, members of the elite 82nd Airborne Division.  Our combat team was currently stationed on Okinawa as a rapid deployment force.  The rest of the world was straight legs or just “legs” as we called them.  A demeaning term applying to anyone that was not a Paratrooper.
Upon arriving at the airfield we were assigned a C-130 transport.  Each platoon had its own aircraft.  We picked up our parachutes and assisted each other in putting them on.  Then dividing up into four preassigned groups called “sticks” we boarded the aircraft.  Two sticks sat on the outboard rows of canvas benches facing in and two sticks sat on the center rows back to back facing out.  All this was done in a quiet practiced fashion.
Once seated the C-130s took off and formed up in jump formation.  There were three groups of three in trail.  It was a short quiet flight to the drop zone.  However, when the jumpmaster gave the command to “STAND UP” the atmosphere on board the aircraft immediately changed.  Every Paratrooper became a pit bull.  Our blood came up and we had” kill “in our eyes.  We were all yelling “AIRBORNE, AIRBORNE!”  Then the command “HOOK UP!” and we all snapped our static lines to the overhead cable and inserted the safety wire.  “CHECK YOUR EQUIPMENT!”  Each of us checked the parachute on the man in front and shouted “ONE OKAY, TWO OKAY!” and so on down the line.
I was pushing the port stick that night, which means I was the last man on the port side.  “STAND IN THE DOOR!”  We all moved forward a little as the first man stood in the door.  Now every eye was on the white, green and red lights above the door as we continued to yell “AIRBORNE!”  White was illuminated, red would mean abort,  we waited for green.  Every muscle in our bodies was tense.  It seemed like forever, then there it was “GREEN LIGHT!”
We poured out the door, each man pausing a fraction of a second to grab the sides of the door and propel himself out into black space.  I in turn leaped out of the aircraft and was immediately hit by an almost 200mph blast of wind.  I started counting, “One thousand and one, one thousand and two.”  When I got to about three I felt the opening shock as the parachute harness dug into me as I decelerated.  I tried to raise my head to check the canopy.  The risers were twisted down to the back of my neck.  I frantically pulled them apart and felt myself turning as they unwound.  When I was able to look up I was shocked to see a tangled mess above me.  I had about one third of a canopy.  Some of the suspension lines were over the top of the canopy causing a malfunction we called a Mae West.  I instantly grabbed my reserve parachute handle and executed the procedure for a partial malfunction.  The reserve pilot chute popped out and ripped the reserve chute upward.  I was falling  faster than I realized.  The reserve got tangled in my suspension lines, but slowed my decent some.  I was still fighting with it, trying to get it untangled when I hit the ground.
I awoke with a medic kneeling beside me and could hear someone screaming medic.   My back really hurt and I couldn’t move so the medics loaded me on a jeep stretcher.  We drove a short way and picked up the guy that was doing all the yelling.  He had a compound fracture of his lower leg.
At the hospital they determined I had broken nothing, just strained my back muscles.  I got a couple of months light duty and had to make several follow up trips back to the hospital for treatments, but other than that I was okay.  I was most fortunate.
The parachute riggers said the malfunction was caused by my having a bad body position when I exited the aircraft.  I didn’t believe it, but on my next jump I was very careful of my body position.        

Kim Warren