...Lenn

I wasn’t good friends with Lenn. He wasn’t on my Facebook and I wasn’t on his.  He was one of my Accelerated Freefall instructors and even though he kind of intimidated me on the drop zone, I respected him.  We would recognize each other on the DZ and say hi and he would ask me how jumping was going and how many jumps I had and blahblahblah.  Everything the old jumpers always asked the new jumpers.  I looked to him as one of the sky gods of Raeford and any chance I had to listen to him pass some words of wisdom, I listened.  Unfortunately I never shared a beer with him.  I’m shy and this is one of those times I regret that immensely.

Because then this sky god died skydiving.

One of the last posts I saw on his page was “ahh...Wednesday, my long awaited day off.  Its been forever since I had a day off.  Monday was the last one.  Glad to not have to be at the dropzone jumping.  I will be at the dropzone jumping if anybody is looking for me.”  How more perfect can your life be?  Replace “dropzone” with anything…garage, mountains, garden, whatever.  Its my day off and the only place I want to be is where I love to be, which fortunately enough happens to be where I work.  Seriously, how perfect can your state of mind be if that’s what you put out to the world in a random comment on a social network site two days before you crash in to the ground at terminal velocity?  A skydiver has a different view of terminal velocity, and while horrifying and tragic, I like to think those who see their life coming to an end at 120 mph think “well, its been fast and fun and you can’t say I didn’t make the most of it”.

I despise the trite statement of “At least he died doing what he loved”.  That doesn’t work for me.  That doesn’t work when you’re 10-yrs old devastated that your father just had a grain auger crush him while feeding livestock.  Or you’re 26-yrs old and your good friend was just blown up by a random IED while on patrol.  Or you’re 34-yrs old and the guy who taught you to jump just had his canopy collapse at 300 feet above ground level.  “Dying doing what he loved” doesn’t work.  But there is something to be said about living doing what you loved.  If you loved farming, soldiering, or jumping, and you died doing that passion, then God has blessed you by allowing you to do that to the end.  Lenn, you led a life to inspire.  Screw dying doing what you love.  We will all cheat that as long as possible.  But no one can argue that you lived doing what you loved and we all need to take a lesson from that.  Blue skies brother.

Nerves -- Part Two

A Wino’s Note:  This post was written 21 May 2013 while drinking champagne on my back deck.  A significant environmental, emotional, and psychological change from Part One.

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Lets recap Part One:  US Army Advanced Airborne School: 1 // A Wino:  0

It may have taken a total of 43 minutes to transition despair in to action.  In 42 minutes I moved through four stages of grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression.  I think I probably transposed Bargaining and Anger and I’m not proud of that, but who can remember what you do when you’re in such a state of utter disbelief.   I never made it to the fifth stage though, Acceptance.  I refused Acceptance.  Instead, I renamed the fifth stage Action and by minute 43 I had A Plan.  Action.  Action is how you survive.  Action is how you move on.  There are many ways it's been said throughout the years:  When You’re Bucked Off the Horse…; Pick Your Ruck Back Up…; Its Not the Critic Who Counts…; many many ways to say the simple concept of “Keep Moving”.  That’s not to say I wasn’t inconsolable.  I was.  For about four days I was completely shattered…four days of humiliation, self-immolation and complete devastation.  Oh ya, and inebriation.  Lots and lots of inebriation.  Failing sucks.

But my Plan kept me treading water and not drowning myself in my sorrows with a bottle of cheap whisky (I don’t drink whisky but the thought definitely crossed my mind, cheap whisky seemed to fit this situation).  My Plan was, purely and simply, to go back.  People do it all the time.  Apparently its what you do.  You fail the US Army Advanced Airborne School and you go back.  Rich, Jon, Jim, but most importantly, Frank, all failed the first time and all went back.  Now sure, to be honest, people typically don’t go back within 32 days before a major PCS to the other side of the country but sometimes you need to buck the trend.  So after a significant amount of negotiation with the powers that be at my current place of employment, some cases of beer promised to anyone who could guarantee me a stand-by slot, and quite a bit of one-on-one time with The Big Man, I went back.  And on 6 May there I was, sitting back in the classroom with 106 of my closest Jumpmaster-To-Be friends, over three-quarters of them back for a second, third, and some even fourth time.  Like I said, apparently going back is what you do.

So fast-forward two weeks.  All that really mattered was distilled down to the laser focus of the JMPI test.  It was eerily familiar:  Sitting in the classroom waiting for my roster number to be called.  Nerves were elevated.  Time was extended.  Stress was palpable.  And there she was again, that inner Jumpmaster:  “Why did you come back?  What if you fail again?  How are you going to walk back in to the office as a Two Time No Go.”  But this time I knew how to handle her.  “Shhhh” I tell her, “I’m busy concentrating.  I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.  Go away”  And shockingly, she actually listened.  She shrugged and quoted Teddy Rooselvelt “It’s not the critic who counts, it’s not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better.  The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena…” and then she sat down, smiled, and waited.  And suddenly her calm made me calm.  My heart rate drop back to a survivable level and I waited.  Calmly.  Confidently.  Intently.

“Roster Number 64…you’re up”.  And here we go…

If you want the gory details call me and I’ll give you the blow by blow.  But I won't bore you unnecessarily with a description that only a few reading this will understand or appreciate.  Bottom line, on my first attempt of three chances to successfully JMPI three jumpers in less than 5 minutes I heard the coveted words every Jumpmaster student dreams of:  “You’re a Go, Jumpmaster”.  My blank stare and disbelieving “uh…what?” made the instructor laugh.  “Congrats, you’re a Go”.  There is no feeling in the world that can quite compare to hearing those three little words of “You’re A Go”.  Just ask anyone who has graduated from THE Jumpmaster Course (all others have an asterisk).

As I drove away from the USA Advanced Airborne School as a Go, “Carry On” by Fun was on the radio.  “If you’re lost and alone and you’re sinking like a stone, Carry On.  May your path be the sound of your feet upon the ground, Carry On”.  How appropriate.  Action.  Its how you survive.

Nerves -- Part One

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