SECURE YOUR CHUTES 87Despite the rigorous and repetitive training, many of us were still nervous
about making our first parachute jump. In part because, as we were often
reminded, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is not normal human
behavior. (Another Marine Corps classmate admitted he’d actually lost
control of his bowels during his first jump. In addition, he said, his eyes
were closed tight the entire way down, so technically it was a night jump.)
After we were awakened at “oh dark thirty” in our Quonset hut the
morning of our first jump, the psyops began almost immediately.
Previously airborne-qualified Big Dale hopped down from his upper
bunk and kneeled next to our half-awake classmate “Jesuit Joe” on the
lower bunk.
“Hey, Joe, I just had a dream about your first jump. Your chute didn’t
open, so you pulled your reserve. The reserve didn’t deploy, but dirty
laundry flew out, along with a note that said, ‘Fuck you.’”
Big Dale’s wake-up call was met with nervous chuckles.
“Oh yeah,” Big Dale added, more loudly, but almost as an after-
thought, “and then you screamed in!”
During ground school, Charlie reassured us daily, “Your chute will
open. I guarantee your chute will open.” Predictably, one classmate’s
chute did not open. Fortunately, when the classmate, whom I’ll call “the
Interceptor,” pulled his reserve, he wasn’t met with dirty laundry and a
thoughtful handwritten note but with a functioning and life-saving reserve
chute. As you will learn in chapter 16, the Interceptor’s luck would con-
tinue unabated throughout training.
We made the first two jumps out of a Twin Otter. On my first jump,
I was seated on the left in the plane’s doorway next to classmate “Carol.”
Our feet dangled out over the edge. Our jumpmaster was “Rodd,” another
colorful SOTC instructor with Vietnam experience. Just before we were
tapped on the helmet to exit the aircraft, Rodd gave Carol a big “good
luck” kiss.
I launched myself out the door before he decided to kiss me as well.
Carol and I had been squeezed in pretty tight and could barely fit in the
doorway together. As I exited the plane, I caught my left arm on the side
of the opening and immediately found myself plummeting to earth upside