I heard, or saw something that, initially, only officers were to be jumpmasters. Glad that went away.

I hate heights!!! I too am a static line JM who just sucks it all up as part of the job. I hated climbing trees as a kid. I was terrified at Airborne School (second time on a plane the first being the flight to basic). I'm sure my face was green on the C-141. I hate obstacle courses (Nasty Nick is not my friend). I hate tall buildings. I hate 60 foot fast ropes in full kit. But damn I love this job. There is no better job in the world! I get to do all this AND a paycheck. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Update
 

I thought I would update this. I'm sure there are a lot of people that have a fear of heights that could end up coming to this forum and have similar questions. I have used this website for motivation, inspiration and as a learning tool so I feel like the least I could do is attempt to contribute a miniscule amount of information to it.

So, a couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to confront my fear of heights at the Ft. Lewis Confidence Course during a RSP drill. (I enlisted into the NG as a 09S some months ago, I ship out to Ft. Benning for BCT next week and go to Federal OCS at Benning, right after basic.)

I'm going to be honest, when I looked at some of the obstacles on the confidence course (I thought of them as the most nefarious contraptions then) , I was scared. If you had taken me there a couple of months ago, shown me a thousand dollars and said "I want you to go up there." I would have laughed at you and told you to get the f#@k out of my face - I'm not crazy, I'm not doing that. Well, looking at the cadre, I had gained a lot of respect for them by now, I quickly realized this wouldn't fly!

Out of the whole Course there were about four of these things that made me swallow hard every time I looked at them, they looked to be 2-3 stories high, one could have been close to a height of 4 stories, but that might be just me imagining things. One of them was a tower that you climb as a team, the others were done individually.

Anyways, we started doing the course, one person at a time, and after about a quarter of the obstacles done, I was faced with my first major challenge. I apologize for I still really do not know what the Army calls these things, but in front of me was an obstacle that looked like a giant ladder, one of the Sergeants was close to the top, about two bars down, just sitting there and waiting on me. Well, I had just come off the weaver (I even had some trepidations on doing the weaver because I had to basically hold on to a beam of wood from the bottom and I was afraid I would let go and fall, turns out people don't let go of stuff if they know they will fall down!:D) , so I took about 5 seconds to recover, said a quick prayer...and started climbing. I tried not to think about anything , and I did not, within 15 seconds I was up and facing the Sergeant thinking "wow that was quick and easy". Then I realized I have to actually move my body across to the other side, it was scary but the Sergeant's presence made me calm and gave me confidence, I put one leg over, slowly shifted my body weight, then the other leg and BAM! I was on the other side and literally flew down the obstacle thinking, "WOW I did it" and just feeling really happy about having done something I otherwise would have never even thought about doing! ( Looking back at it, I sure did make a huge deal out of climbing up a giant ladder!)

Soon after came another "big" obstacle, we had to climb up to this tower, get on the rope and use our hands to pull the body that was on the rope at a downward angle for a distance of about 30-35 yards. I don't want to bore you with all the details. I quickly climbed up not really thinking about it, when I got up I looked down and took a few heavy breaths (again, it was scary looking down), there were two Sergeants that told me how to get on the rope, and gave my leg a nudge that seemed to have been stuck to the obstacle, I think being on the rope and coming down was actually the easiest part (there is a safety net below).

A similar process happened on the other two obstacles.


I did them all, and now I know why this is called the Confidence Course!!!:) It truly lives up to its name; it definitely did give me the confidence that I can face my fear of heights and that I can subdue it in order to accomplish what I need to accomplish. Don't get me wrong, this is not something that I'm particularly looking forward to be doing in my upcoming training, but it feels good to know that when the time comes I'll be able to overcome my fear and do what needs to be done.

To finish this up, I want to again thank everyone who participates on this forum, especially the QPs. I feel that having had access to such a fantastic information database that this forum is, has helped me acquire the right mindset that I will need to exhibit in order to be successful.

I'm excited about BCT, OCS and FA BOLC (well sort of, I have heard a lot of horror stories about FA BOLC) I'm looking forward to the challenge!


Regards,

Zosima

I've always been very fearful of heights since I was very young. My father, being the type of person that likes to get into recreational sports, such as rock climbing and sky diving, also liked bringing along his sons. He's also a psychologist.

He taught me a trick to overcome these types of fears. Based on what Team Sergeant said above, I think he intuitively "found" that trick on his own. The fear you feel when pondering the sensation of falling or imagining being "nudged" by someone while close to an edge is you putting yourself on the far end of the "fight or flight" spectrum.

You overcome this fear by you willfully shifting yourself over to the fight side and telling yourself that you're here to win this fight in the same way you would in a fist fight. Tell yourself that if you lose this "fight" that there will be consequences. Sometimes you have to make these up, sometimes they're real. But sometimes the real consequences aren't enough to bring out the "fight" in you. Put it in your mind that if you don't win this "fight" you're going to get your ass kicked and running away, or "flight", isn't an option. Keep it primal because complex thoughts, like not passing the nasty nick and therefore not being selected somehow doesn't always register.

You're not fighting the fear now, you're fighting the challenge and thereby eliminating the fear/flight from the equation.

Fear of falling
 

Oddly enough, in both EOD and parachuting I heard the expression "Anyone who tells you they aren't afraid is either a liar or a fool".

Years ago (early 70's, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth), the University of Massachusetts did a study where they monitored heartbeat and respiration of skydivers making a jump. They found that inexperienced jumpers were most nervous/aroused just before exit. Experienced jumpers had elevated physiological signs just before pulling. The conclusion was that as you became more experienced and began to trust your gear you knew that deployment was the most likely point of failure. Skydivers usually assert that the drive to and from the DZ is the most dangerous part of making a jump!

So TRUE!! I make it a point of telling the New Tandem Folks after their jump that after just completing the third most dangerous thing that they have done today, they are going to do THE SECOND MOST........Driving Home!!

Take care.
Martin

Yeah, HALO / static jumping is dangerous inherently, but I'll take that over leading a 5.9 trad route...... hence my damn broken T3. And even then, all I want to do is get back on the rock and / or ice...........