Mental And Physical Training
Training to become a paratrooper in the army began as soon as you get to your first regular duty assignment. You are not yet training with the rest of the unit because you first have to complete your training to be a qualified paratrooper. That will take weeks of conditioning both physically and mentally. You are set to began training and in your mind you convince yourself; I know I can do this. No matter how hard it gets I will not quit. Soldiers that quit are immediately shipped out to an undesirable assignment. Usually to the DMZ in Korea.
After days of tough and hard physical training you are required to pass a physical training test. You are in the best shape physically since you came into the army, so this PT test should be a breeze to pass. You are tested on several things such as pullups, situps, monkey bars, how fast can you run a mile, pushups and several other things that test your endurance and physical strength. If you are not able to pass the PT test you are not qualified to be a paratrooper. You will be given more than one chance; and this is before you even get to jump school and start your training to become a paratrooper.
Training For Jump School
What you have been doing up to this point is merely conditioning to be a soldier. Getting physically and mentally strong and ready for jump school.
The day finally come for you to start your paratrooper training. Now this is training that you must complete to become a paratrooper on top of all of the other training to make you physically and mentally fit. As the training began; you quickly learn that everything you do is either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. If you do it wrong; it will require you to do something to benefit you in the long run. Usually you are told to get down and do so many pushups. If you start and don't count; you are required to start over.
This builds up your strength and it makes you remember not to make the same mistake again. In the course of a day you could end up doing several hundred pushups if you are not careful. Every time you move from one location to another; it has to be on the double. There is no walking in jump school.
Jump School Training
The training is all building up for the final week called jump week. From one day to the next you are learning the skills you will need as a paratrooper. If you are going to be jumping out of airplanes; you must know how to exit to keep from banging against the side of the plane. You must know how to avoid hanging yourself or being seriously burned when your parachute opens. You need to know how to avoid other paratroopers while descending to the ground. You without a doubt has to know what to do if your parachute doesn't open.
If you don't learn this stuff it could cost you your life or you could end up being the cause of some other paratrooper losing his or her life. That is not a misprint. Yes, there are women paratroopers. Now you must also know how to tell if your parachute is malfunctioned or not; if so you have to know what to do. Even in the plane, you have to know how to check the equipment of the jumper in front of you.
After jumping you check your parachute; if all is not well; you have to know what to do. You have been taught how to deploy your emergency parachute. You are safely descending to the ground; now you got to know how to land to keep from getting hurt. Every paratrooper know how to do what is call a PLF(parachute landing fall).
Before landing and while in the air you must know how to get off of another's parachute if one is underneath you. You need to know how to guide your parachute to keep away from other paratroopers. This will eliminate the possibility of becoming entangled in someone eles's parachute or they in yours.
Hup Thousand; 2 Thousand; 3 Thousand; 4 Thousand
When you jump from a plane you must hold that body position taught in jump school for four seconds; look up check your parachute and make sure no one is underneath you; look around to ensure no one is about to collide with you and keep watch all the way to the ground.
Once you exit the plane on your first jump; every sound that you was hearing in the plane is gone and you hear nothing; not even the plane from which you just jumped. You are so thrilled. You want to yell; "look ma, I did it". It's unbelievable. Now you are required to make four more jumbs to be fully qualified as a paratrooper and earn your jump wings. Man; what a feeling.
Right about this time, you start to think about a number of things. Money is one of the many reason for deciding to become a paratrooper. There are other good reasons, but I think the one that drives a lot of decisions is the money. Paratroopers get extra pay called jump pay. To be sure to get the pay every month, you are required to make a jump once every three months. The pay is for hazardous duty. I also decided to become a paratrooper because of peer presure. I had a couple of home boys that was airborne and when they came home on pass; they were hot with the girls in their spit shined jump boots and bloused pants.
All of the techniques needed to be a paratrooper are taught to you over and over, in jump school. The reason is clear and simple; because once you jump out of a plane, the only thing that is going to stop you from falling is the ground; and how fast you hit the ground could very well depend on how well you learn what is taught to you in jump school.
