A PARATROOPER
By George L. Coleman, Author – TO HELL WITH HELL, Starvation And The Church



Becoming a U. S. Army paratrooper had always appealed to me since early childhood. I saw the spit and polish of the men of the famed 101st Airborne Division on a regular basis because Fort Campbell, Kentucky was and is the home of that elite fighting force for the U. S. Army, less than 30 miles from my place of birth, Crofton, Kentucky. Having grown up witnessing the soldiers and occasionally being privileged to see them perform a training maneuver by parachuting out of a C-119 flying boxcar, C123 or C130 airplane, reassembling on the ground and then complete their mission as planned was a boost to my inner desire to “be like them”. They all seemed to fit a pattern. Slim and trim, have a certain swagger about them and possess an incredible amount of self confidence. However; I was a skinny young man and I wasn’t sure I could make the grade physically. I knew the training was grueling and very stressful, requiring not only the maximum toughness one can muster but an undying desire to succeed. I knew I did not possess the physical attributes so I would have to make it up with an incredible desire to succeed displayed during the training period which began with what the Army calls basic training; some other military branches call it boot camp or something similar. To become a candidate for “Airborne” status, there remained another 8 weeks of advanced tactical training, followed by 4 weeks of preparatory physical training prior to the actual “jump school”, and subsequently three weeks of the most strenuous, tough, grueling and almost impossible displays of physical preparedness and desire to excel ever needed by mankind.
The day came for my group of volunteers to see how many of us could make it through the courses and receive our jump wings, a pinned on piece of metal that signifies you are a special breed of man and beast, capable of withstanding an assault of 5 non paratroopers, civilian or military, surviving with minimal physical damage to oneself and maintaining the espre decorp necessary to continue to stand proud and erect. That’s what they do to you in training, preparing you for your first parachute jump. Having been successfully brain washed by the trainers, those of us who remained as a unit made our first jump. There were 476 candidates on the first day of training. Come jump day, there were 145 trainees who had managed to survive. I believe I was the proudest because I never expected to make the grade. I knew then that it wasn’t brawn or brains that got me there; it was in fact what I had said to myself many years previous, a tremendous and undying desire to succeed. I proudly wore those wings for 4 more years before becoming a civilian once again. Nothing can equal the excitement, extreme feeling of accomplishment or drama of that experience.