SECURE YOUR CHUTES 85rappel down the back side of that same tower. (It’s also hard to convince
your body to go along with leaning backward off the top of a tower.)
Big Dale led PT with some of his more inspired Marine Corps jody
calls, such as, “This is a story ’bout a man named Jed, weird motherfucker
wore a rubber on his head,” but most of the traditional calls became boring
and repetitive. There were only so many times we could enthusiastically
chant, “I know a girl who lives on a hill; she won’t do it but her sister will.”
To spice things up, I came up with a few jody calls of my own, some of
which would probably get me booted from training in today’s CIA. Besides
being politically incorrect, they skewered some of the absurdities we were
taught in jump school.
For example, we learned how to deal with a dangerous “towed jumper”
scenario, in which a jumper is towed from the plane by a faulty static line
that fails to release the jumper and deploy the parachute. The primary
chute will not open under these circumstances, but the physics of the situ-
ation make it physically impossible for those on board to pull the towed
jumper back inside the fast-moving plane. We were warned not to pull the
rip cord on the reserve chute while still tethered to the plane, since that
could bring the entire plane down.
The game plan—assuming the jumper is conscious—is for the jump-
master to cut the static line with a knife once the towed jumper signals he’s
ready. After being cut loose, the jumper activates the reserve chute and
safely returns to the earth.
So far so good.
The problem arises when the towed jumper is unconscious, either from
banging his head repeatedly against the side of the plane, or from fainting
from fear as he takes the leap into the abyss. In this scenario he cannot
signal the jumpmaster and also cannot pull his reserve chute. The jump-
master cannot cut him loose since he’s unconscious. What to do?
Charlie’s plan was as follows: After communication with the ground,
the pilot would fly the plane low and slow over the runway with the dan-
gling towed jumper aligned directly above a pickup truck, which would be
moving along underneath the plane at roughly the same speed. Charlie
would cut the static line, and the unconscious towed jumper would drop
safely into the nurturing bed of the speeding pickup truck.
What could possibly go wrong?