After he had a shower and ate breakfast, Faith returned to the office. He knew he needed to talk to the DCO sometime today, and maybe even The Dud too, but he was not sure how he was going to fit it all in around the jump. His experience up to this point had been that jumps were an all-day affair. Speaking of which he didn’t know where or when he was supposed to meet up to get out to the airfield. He looked at the unit phone list and made a call over to the MID.
“MID, Marion speaking,” a voice said on the other line. The voice sounded oddly familiar but Faith didn’t recognize the name. It irked him when people answered their phones with just their first names. At a minimum it should be last names, ideally rank and last names. One more thing to fix in the MID, he mused.
“Um, hi, this is Captain Faith, I’m just calling to find out when and where I need to be for the jump this afternoon.”
“Glad you called sir,” said the other voice, “Meet at 1000 on the Group parade field. Do you know where that is?”
Faith did. “What all do I need to bring?” he inquired.
“The usual stuff you normally bring when you jump,” the other man said.
“It has been a while since I made my last jump,” Faith said, “The ‘usual stuff’ meaning a helmet, rucksack, canteen, that kind of thing?”
“Yeah, whatever you want to jump with, if it has been a while you can jump Hollywood,” meaning without equipment. “Find me at pre-jump and I’ll get you all squared away.”
“Great,” said Faith, a bit relieved, “See you at 1000.”
“Roger, sir.”
Faith hung up the phone still wondering who Marion was. He tried to call the DCG, but got voicemail. He then followed up with an email bringing the DCG up to date on what happened and informing him that Faith would be at a jump all day. After answering a few more emails, Faith opened his wall locker and took out his helmet and an empty canteen. He considered bringing his rucksack, but decided not to. He didn’t remember how to
configure it anyway.
After filling his canteen and putting it in the cargo pocket of his BDUs, Faith experienced a bit of nostalgia. This was pretty much exactly like Airborne School, he mused. Same uniform, same equipment, same pre-jump apprehension. The major difference now was he was getting paid a lot better than he was when he was in Airborne School. And no one was going to be yelling at him the whole time. Presumably, that is.
Faith easily found the place where everyone was gathering prior to the jump. He saw Travis right away, easily recognizable by his height and bushy moustache. He needed to find Marion though. After looking around a bit, he didn’t see anyone wearing a nametag that said Marion. Approaching Travis from behind, he tapped the other man on the shoulder. Travis turned his head. “Hi sir,” he said.
“Master Sergeant Travis, I was on the phone with Marion earlier this morning and he said I should link up with him once I get to pre-jump,” Faith began. “Have you seen him anywhere?”
Two young Soldiers standing near Travis started laughing. Travis smiled too and turned around to face Faith. That was when Faith noticed the name tag on Travis’s uniform- “MARION.” Faith was confused.
“I thought your name was Travis,” Faith said.
“It is… at least my first name is,” MSG Marion stated with amusement. Faith felt a little embarrassed.
“Sorry, when I talked to you earlier on the phone, when I didn’t know it was you, I thought the first name of the guy I was talking to was Marion,” Faith stammered.
“What kind of wussy name for a man is Marion?” MSG Travis said with a laugh. “Come on sir, I’ll get you squared away.” MSG Travis led Faith over to a low wooden platform, where several men were setting up a loudspeaker and several large wood-backed posters in preparation of pre-jump. MSG Travis introduced Faith to the team, and Faith was relieved to see some familiar faces.
“Hello, Razor, Paul,” Faith said, recognizing these men as part of the crown that Chief Michaels brought by Faith’s office not to long ago.
“Hi, sir,” said Paul, seeming to be genuinely glad to see Faith. RB nodded in acknowledgment but said nothing, focusing on getting everything set up for pre-jump.
“My captain here says he hasn’t jumped in a while, anything special you need to do with him?” Marion inquired.
“Well, he has to have jump refresher before he can jump with us,” said Paul. “Do you have any current jumpmasters who can do him up real quick?”
Travis gave Paul a doubtful look. “In the MID?” he asked rhetorically, clearly meaning “no.”
Paul didn’t miss a beat. “No problem, I’ll get him squared away. Come on over here sir,” he said to Faith.
“I’ll catch up with you on the drop zone, sir,” Marion said before departing.
Paul brought Faith over to a corner of the stage, where there was a packed parachute and reserve. “OK, here’s your jump refresher,” he began. Faith was very relieved that he was getting this refresher training, he was very nervous that he would have forgotten something in the decade-plus since he had worn a ‘chute. But shortly after he began, another man picked up the bullhorn and bellowed, “OK JUMPERS, GATHER ‘ROUND FOR PRE-JUMP!”
“Crap,” Paul exclaimed, “J.D. started earlier than I expected. OK sir, check it out. ‘Chute,” he said holding up a parachute. Setting that back down, he held up a reserve. “Reserve.” Putting that too down, he continued, “Feet and knees together, six-count out of the aircraft. See you on the DZ.”
As Faith assumed his position in the formation for pre-jump, he felt no small level of anxiety. Did that really just count as pre-jump? And a six-count after leaving the aircraft? Wasn’t the rule “four out the door?”
The pre-jump allayed a lot of Faith’s fears about the upcoming jump. Faith came to understand that the jump refresher training was actually a bit superfluous given the thoroughness of pre-jump. After rehearsing the entire jump process twice, Faith joined the line to practice PLFs. Climbing onto the stage and throwing himself off, Faith rehearsed the process of the parachute landing fall. He was pleased that his body still seemed to have some residual muscle memory, even after 12 years. After everyone had done a front right, front left, rear right and rear left PLF, J.D., who had previously identified himself as the mission commander for today’s jump, called everyone to form back up for the jump brief.
“Men,” J.D. began, even though there were a good number of women in the audience, “today’s jump is out of a Casa-212, with a -1B ‘chute. We are jumping ramp into Suckchon DZ. Is this anyone’s first time jumping out of a Casa?”
Faith was among a handful who raised their hands.
“Anyone who is jumping into Suckchon for the first time?”
Faith again raised his hand. “Case of beer!” someone from the back of the formation shouted.
“Anyone who has never jumped a -1B before?” Faith was pretty sure they had those back at Airborne School, so he didn’t raise his hand. No one else did either.
“Good,” said J.D., scanning the assembled group and not seeing any raised hands.
“OK, last thing, for how many of you is this your first jump after Airborne School?” Faith was about to put his and up when he noticed Paul looking at him. Paul was slowly shaking his head “no,” but Faith didn’t know what that meant. He raised his hand.
Immediately after he put his hand up, there were a series of cat calls and shouts of
“Cherries!” from within the formation. Not sure what was going on, Faith glanced around and saw a number of other people with their hands up as well.
“Settle down,” J.D. directed the noisy audience. “Listen up everyone, we’re going to go through the air mission brief.” Using the posters Faith had observed earlier, J.D. walked the group through the entire jump from start to finish, discussed the specifics of jumping from a Casa, and broke the group up into smaller sections, called “chalks,” in preparation for rehearsing “actions inside the aircraft” in the mock aircraft bodies located there in the rehearsal area. Faith was surprised to learn that he was on Chalk One.
“Jumpmasters,” J.D. directed through the bullhorn, “Take your chalks through actions on the aircraft. Cherry jumpers, deposit your helmets here at the stage during the rehearsals. Chalk One, you’re on me.” When J.D. was done talking, the crowd dissolved into a seething mass as jumpmasters bellowed out their chalk numbers and their respective personnel gathered around them. The jumpmasters first checked ID cards and tags, then helmets.
J.D. took Faith’s helmet and set it on the stage. “We’ll get that taken care of for you sir,” he said as he smiled reassuringly. “How long has it been since your last jump?”
“12 years,” Faith replied, wondering why they needed his helmet. No one else in the chalk had to turn theirs in. “Wow!” J.D. exclaimed in amazement, “I think that makes you the biggest cherry of all!” Several other members of Chalk One laughed, but Faith didn’t get the joke.
