AIRBORNE School!!!!!!
 

From the Team Sergeant to you "legs" attempting to graduate from Airborne School.

Instructions:

Go to the website below.

http://www.west-point.org/greimanj/w...ntherisers.htm

Turn up the volume on your speakers.

and sing along to the following: (oh and enjoy Airborne School;) )

Team Sergeant


Blood on the Risers


He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright.
He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight.
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar.
You ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus:
Gory, gory, what a hell of way to die.
Gory, gory, what a hell of way to die.
Gory, gory, what a hell of way to die.
He ain't gonna jump no more.

"Is everybody happy?" cried the sergeant looking up.
Our hero feebly answered, "Yes", and then they stood him up.
He jumped into the icy blast, his static line unhooked.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock.
He felt the wind, he felt the cold, he felt the awful drop.
The silk from his reserve spilled out and wrapped around his legs. And he ain't gonna jump no more.

The risers swung around his neck, connectors cracked his dome.
Suspension lines were tied in knots around his skinny bones.
The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

The days he lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind.
He thought about the girl back home, the one he left behind.
He thought about the medicos and wondered what they'd find.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

The ambulance was on the spot, the jeeps were running wild.
The medics jumped and screamed with glee, rolled up their sleeves and smiled.
For it had been a week or more since last a 'chute had failed.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

He hit the ground, the sound was "Splat," his blood went spurting high.
His comrades they were heard to say, "A helluva way to die."
He lay there rolling 'round in the welter of his gore.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the 'chute.
Intestines were a-dangling from his paratrooper suit.
He was a mess, they picked him up and poured him from his boots.
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

Still love it!!!

My lead instructor in HSJROTC taught us that one. great cadence.

Man I miss jumping.

So morbid! Don't let my wife see that one. :cool:

That'll get you out of bed in the morning.
Gotta love the dark humor.
Thanks!

It got me out of bed in the morning for a full month, back in the dark ages of my misspent youth. 42nd Co was so fun.

Going to show my age here, you youngsters call it "Airborne School", correct?

We called it "Jump School", early 60's. I still remember buying my first pair of "Corcoran, jump boots"!

T-
'Unofficially' it will always be Jump School, but if you look back at your diploma/orders (has the parchment, or was it papyrus back then, held up well?) they'll Actually say: US Army Infantry Training Center, Fort Benning, Georgia - Basic Airborne Course - even mine from 1980 says that, although back in your day Wilbur and Orville were still flying the planes, right? :D

Yeah
 

Yeah, but what company were you in?

43rd Company, July 1974.

Pete

Ahhh the memories....
 

42nd Company February 1983

My diploma says "Airborne Course" (does not include the word Basic).

However, it will always be Jump School to me.

Ahhh the memories
 

I got to Ft Benning right at the start of the 4th of July weekend. The only zero week detail I pulled was out at the 250 ft towers on the 4th.

One of the towers was set up as a ride and had guide cables and a lift cable. A bench seat was suspended under a parachute. The lift cable would pull the seat up to the top of the tower and released. The drag of the lift cable and the parachute would make the riders come down fairly slowly along the guide cables.

I helped the riders into and out of the seat. When kids wanted to ride but the parents didn't I "had to" ride with the kids. Made many an up and down that weekend. Far more than I did at Tower Week.

Pete

42nd Company Aug 1980 Have to dig for the Diploma, but I think 112 is right it says Airborne Course.

The Army sure seems to think it is the Basic Airborne Course.

https://www.infantry.army.mil/airborne/airborne/

TR

I called it "school" only because of our "civilian" readers.;) Otherwise I would have used "Basic Airborne Course".

(We're guilty of calling the MFF course Halo school....:D)

TS

Roger, I have called it Jump School and Airborne School, just trying to inform others who seemed uncertain as to the current official title.

Still a great jody, BTW.;)

TR

MMF? :rolleyes:

42nd Company - July 1980

I went to MMF school too - twice ;)

No, I didn't fail - the school was closed for a couple of months because the parachutes were deadlined while I was there. The 2nd time was much better, we went to Las Vegas for the wind tunnel (thanks Bubba).

i thought HALO was spelled MFF...? but then again, i was a cradle-to-retirement rope jumper and square-toed yodler...

What?



:D

an optical delusion, no doubt...:D

Yeah and didn't you tell me you were in "1st Company" Basic Airborne Course?:D

TS

Thats because we old farts didn't have the internet...I still have my 60's spit-shined Corcorans in the closet:)

You ought to post up a pic of those "Corcorans", I'd like to see them. I had to lie about my boot size to keep from being issued a cpuple pair of brown boots.

I also took basic with the M-1 Garand, and was assigned a BAR. That is one heavy, awkward, SOB!

http://www.173rdairborne.com/music.htm

This one has a bunch of them as well

youtube.com/watch?v=xPKXB0PCyT4

This one is a video of himself singing The SONG

BAC
 

48 hours worth of training packed into 3 weeks !! :p

LOL

[QUOTE=NousDefionsDoc]42nd Company - July 1980 QUOTE]


Me too, but August 1965. Remember having to have these damn pictures taken. They threw a rig on you the first day of ground week and none of us knew which what was what. They kept on telling us to smile and the only thing I wanted to say was get bent and let's get on with it.

Very cool picture, Colonel.

Beats me why you guys want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Must be an acquired taste. :D

Bandy

Ya can't beat the good ol' days......

Jim

COL Jack, the Horror!!!! You were a leg Ranger!!!:eek:

Evidently you have never flown with some of the pilots I have:D

GOOD ANSWER!

Fookin Aviators!:D

And didn't the frigging black hats remind us of that. Now remember I am not short, just wound up tight and from day one it was "Little Ranger this and Little Ranger that". It got to the point that the other 14 "leg rangers" that came over from the Ranger course to the Airborne course decided to hold an attitude adjustment phase and dragged the black hats into the showers with us and rolled them around in the sawdust so they were as nasty as were we. We did pay for it by doing the bear walk around the track until they realized that they were not going to break us. The final payback they attempted were blood wings for the lot of us-but actually we all took it as a compliment and a rite of passage. Then we were dumb ass 2Lts-what did we know:D

Good old days!

Umgawa
 

I remember being more frieghtened at the "UMGAWA" tower than the actual jumps from the bird. Too much time being raised and then the Blackhats let you hang up there to get a good look out over the state of Georgia

MEGAPHONE:

"Feet toghether, knee's bent, relax.....................OUCH":lifter

You know, you are absolutely right! Wish the bunch I knew back then were around today. Unfortunately there are a lot of vacancies in the stick but if I close my eyes I can see them all and still smell the mixture of JP4, chaffed nylon, mildewed kit bags, and a faint hint of someone's rejected creamed beef that should have been eaten for breakfast.

I still have my picture just like that (but it's in color). LOL

I had birth control glasses on...

Thanks for sharing Sir.

ROGER!

We lost some of our best and brightest, during, and shortly after that timeframe...

Excellent description, brings it all back!

Hmmmmmm...... I have the Class Book at home, you were E-what? I'll find you, get it scanned and we'll see what the pre adult NDD looked like - with appropriate PERSEC and OPSEC. This coud be fun, unless you were in the 42nd Co rotation before mine.... then I'm SOL.

Isn't it amazing that there are certain things that just stick in your memory - ABN being one of them?