Poor Decisions-Good Reasons

After some time in combat and after long term exposure to those pressures, a person can become kind of fatalistic. You kind of accept that you will get killed, so you ignore that idea and focus elsewhere. At least I think I did. It's also interesting how a person can change from one personality to another in an instant. 

You can be in a village being a benevolent caregiver treating disease and injuries, joking with kids and passing out candy one minute, and engaged in a desperate firefight with some of the same people the next. Trying to control both ends can be pretty hard to do sometimes.

As for the first one, I engaged in an act that would seem foolish, even totally stupid to some, but at the time, in my opinion, it was perfectly sane and needed at the time. 

I was a platoon leader, principal instructor, and weapons man in a new Mike Force Company that we trained as a rifle company and then trained to be Airborne. It was done in Pleiku, and due to the shortage of parachutes and aircraft, each man only got two jumps, one Hollywood or with no equipment and one with a weapon, ammo, and a light rucksack. 

The first day we got everyone a jump, but it was a long day due to delays with winds. That evening I went to the C-Team or C Company compound to turn in the used parachutes and air items, then a couple of us went to the C-team club for a beer. While sipping a beer, we discussed the day's events, and I mentioned it would be fun to get a free fall. One of the riggers, an SP/4 named Garcia I seem to recall, asked if I was HALO (now Military Free Fall) qualified. I said yes, and he said if I wanted to make a free fall, he had a rig for me. 

We discussed it, and he said it was a military free-fall rig, and he had it in a kit bag under his desk in the Rigger Shed. He said it had an altimeter and bunny helmet and that both the main and reserve were freshly packed. I could pick it all up in the morning when we collected the static line parachutes for the troop drop. 

So at about 0400, the next morning, we picked up the parachutes, and I checked under the desk. I found the kit bag, and when I checked inside, I found a closed pack and reserve. I checked routing of the ripcord; it was fine and then opened the front of the reserve. The reserve had a lead rigger's seal, and the log had a pack date within a week of that day. Cool! I got excited and threw the gear on the truck.

I worked out details for a free fall with the DZ crew and spoke to the pilot. I asked if he would make a final pass at 12,500 to 13,000' AGL and allow me to make a free-fall after all the static line jumps were over. He agreed, and we worked out some hand and arm signals for controlling the approach, and so on. Someone told the Yards about it, and they wanted an explanation. 

I explained that unlike the automatic static line deployment their parachutes used, I would fall free for about 10,000 feet and then open the parachute manually. They were excited to hear about it but more excited to see it happen. 

So we went about our business, and we dropped all but the last load. The plan was that I would jumpmaster the load and then don my gear as the plane climbed to altitude. The final load boarded, and here came a rather chubby AF Master Sergeant with a camera. He climbed on, and the pilot said he wanted photos of the event. I said OK, but the guy was not my responsibility, and he had to stay out of the way. Everyone agreed, and off we went.

We dropped the troops without incident, and I went forward to get my gear. I opened the bag and took everything out. That is, I removed a main and a reserve. No helmet and no altimeter. I checked the ripcord cable and pins again, all OK, and put on the main. I picked up the reserve. Hmmm. No D rings on the main to attach the reserve! I looked at the reserve, no belly strap or fasteners. Damn, this is all messed up. We kept climbing. 

I found some manila rope and tied the reserve to my front. I already had taped my Browning, so it was secure. I got to thinking. 

First, I had a brand new company with whom I would go on our first operation the next day. I would be leading the point element. They needed to trust me and believe I was as good as my word. Second, I did not think that rigger wanted to kill me; he was probably getting a jab at us for being a bunch of arrogant Mike Force guys, which I guess we often were. Third, I am not too sure I just did not care all that much, that fate was just around the corner anyway! So I decided to jump. If I had a malfunction, I thought I might be able to feed out my reserve by hand, but really knowing that was just more Buffalo Chips!

The pilot called me up and said we were at 13,000' and change and heading towards the DZ, a large open area west of Pleiku next to a small village. I walked to the rear ramp and started spotting. I could see smoke on the DZ, yellow; I think, not red, so that was OK. I gave left and right signals, and we tracked right where I estimated I wanted to exit. Finally, we came up to the exit point. I turned and gave the pilot a thumbs up. He pulled the controls into his belly.

The nose shot up, the AF Master sergeant fell down and started rolling to the rear, and I stepped off backward. Funny what goes through your mind at times, I remember telling myself that if that guy fell out of the plane I was not going to try to catch and hold him; not that I could have actually flown well enough to slow my descent and fly to him or to hold on anyway. I would have just have had to wave by.

So there I am in a free fall. No instruments except a wrist compass and they were not useful at the time,

So I just burned a hole in the sky. I fell flat and stable until I got ground rush, features on the ground started to kind of bounce larger and larger. I pulled.

Oh, my God. That sucker opened so hard I literally bounced back up high enough that my suspension lines were loose below me. Then I fell far enough to feel a second opening shock! I looked up, and the canopy was not modified as I had been promised. It was not sleeve or quarter bag deployed, and there were no cuts in the fabric to give it drive or maneuverability. Nothing. It was just a basic C-12 three-color canopy. But there was one modification; it had two pilot chutes, which only stretched it out quicker than normal.

But I was happy. I was under a good canopy at an estimated 2000'. So I started to look around. I was almost dead center on the DZ, and the winds were light. Then some sorry SOB in or near the village started shooting. The guy was firing single shots in pretty rapid succession, and they were close enough to concern me. I started to slip to loose air and altitude as fast as I could. 

The fun part then was that the entire company was standing in the assembly area watching me. They also were all armed. Without a command, the company formed up and moved out to attack that village. As soon as they started moving, the shooting stopped, so from then, it was all business as usual. I landed easily (I was lighter then too), and the troops came back after scaring the hell out of the Vietnamese in that village. Montagnards and Vietnamese did not get along, so maybe it better. I did not know what happened there.

When we got back to turn in our gear, I went looking for a young parachute rigger only to learn that he had left on R&R that morning! I never got a chance to look for him again after that, but I expect he got a good laugh over the event.

Still, today I would consider what I did that day to be foolhardy and that I made a series of bad decisions. However, given the situation and my mental attitude at the time, I would probably have done the same thing were it to happen today. I decided that the respect and confidence I wanted from those troops was worth the risk. 

The biggest difference in what I did and what I would have done if I had not been in a hurry to pick up the gear that morning, normally I would lay everything out and try it all on before leaving the rigger shed. I just was too trusting.