A Wino’s Note: This post was started 24 April while sitting outside the US Army Advanced Airborne School, also known as the 82nd Airborne Division Jumpmaster School, in my Jeep at 0600 waiting to take my last Jumpmaster Personnel Inspection (JMPI) test. I didn’t post it then. I’m posting it now as a Two-Part Series.
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Three JMPIs in five minutes. Its not hard when you’re in the circle. It’s not hard when you’re in testing conditions. The wait is what’s hard. You know the sequence. You can do it in your sleep. Hell…you’ve done it in your sleep over the last few nights, waking yourself up at 0200 saying “hold – squat – recover – turn – bend”. You know what looks right and what looks wrong. You’ve shadow boxed an entire brigade out an aircraft on big package week over the past 24 hrs. It’s the wait that kills you. As time slowly ticks by your confidence is slowly eaten away. Two hours ago your inner Jumpmaster was saying “you got this…its easy”. Now that inner Jumpmaster is doing her best to destroy what little is left of your confidence. She starts playing the What If game with you. “What if the deployment assistance device is offset more than 50% to the jumpers left?” SHUT UP! Trust your sequence. “What if there is foreign debris in the canopy release assembly?” SHUT UP! You’ll catch it. “What if you screw up your Jumpers Left, Jumpers Right?” SHUT UP! You know to anchor off the left carrying handle. “What if…” SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!
SHUT UP! you tell your inner Jumpmaster. You can what if the entire sequence but its not going to help. Calm down. Relax. Morons pass this course all the time. Ya, she says, but you also know really squared away jumpers who were First Time No Go’s. Rich, Jon, Jim, even Frank. All First Time No Gos. All the most experienced jumpers you know. Breathe. Visualize. Relax. If only your roster number would be called so you can start. Action defeats nerves. Action allows you to overcome the moment as your nerves are running rampant on your psyche. But action is what you’re waiting for and unfortunately the Earth only travels so fast around the sun, putting nerves squarely in the drivers seat. Action must wait.
Your nerves eat you away. They destroy what is left of that arrogant strut you walked in with, reverting it to an uneasy shuffle. You have heard countless people talk about the self-imposed stress of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Jumpmaster Course…how it reaches a stress level many have never experienced before and will never experience again. Rangers. SF. ER Doctors. All say the same. How many times have you heard “My Go at the Division’s Jumpmaster Course was sweeter than my Go at Ranger School”. Now this logistician confirms what those guys have been saying since 1942. This thing is no-joke. A sliver of your mind removes itself and objectively looks around the room as your classmates deal with stress in a myriad of ways. You wonder if there has ever been a psychological study of this environment. There’s got to be a paper out there. You tell yourself to remember to ask Krista, which you promptly forget about.
“Roster Number 44…you’re up”. And here we go…
Action is what defeats nerves and now you’re in motion. You’re feeling good. You’re smooth. You’re sure. You call out deficiencies on your first jumper. Easy. You’re finding them on your second jumper. Boom. You’re tracing the universal static line on your third jumper. And there it is, you see your last Major Deficiency on the third jumper. You’ve got this. You call it out. And then the unthinkable: “Time Jumpmaster”. Your sequence doesn’t get you. Time doesn’t get you. Nomenclature gets you. The 82nd's exacting standards get you. Nerves get you. You missed a word. “Universal static line misrouted through the inner static line stow bar right side” doesn’t cut it. Only “Universal static line misrouted through inner static line stow bar right side middle” would have gotten you a Go. The world stops turning and time stands still. You have failed the 82nd Airborne Division Jumpmaster Course. You, who has never failed a course before, lose. Nerves win.
US Army Advanced Airborne School: 1 // A Wino: 0
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