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Back in 1986 while assigned to an airborne unit in Vicenza - Italy, I got deployed to "Graf" Germany with the advance party to perform duties as a Drop Zone Safety Officer (DZSO).
It was going to be my responsibility to set up and prepare the drop zone (Bunker DZ) so my battalion could safely drop on it.
A young captain with far less experience and fewer parachute jumps than I, was tasked to be my assistant DZSO.
Except for his vulgar and profane language that he used quite often, he wasn't such a bad officer.
(Obviously not a West Pointer, huh?)
On the morning of the parachute drop just as we were preparing the drop zone, I saw a long line of vehicles start to pull up to the set of bleachers that overlooked Bunker DZ.
It appeared we were going to have a large crowd of spectators watching our massive drop of 1,000 paratroopers and 30 vehicles from 25 x C-130 Hercules aircraft.
Nothing unusual about this, we always draw a crowd of spectators and onlookers whenever we jump in somewhere.
However, on this particular occasion they installed a few loud speakers just in front of the bleachers so the crowd could listen in on our radio frequency during the airborne operation. Unfortunately, no one told me or my assistant DZSO about this arrangement.
Well the closer it got to TOT (Time-On-Target), the more people showed up.
And because it was a weekend and not a weekday, there were a lot of women and children present.
And not only were the bleachers and VIP viewing stand packed, but there were an awful lot of people standing and sitting on the ground too.
"Wow!" I said to myself, "Is this going to be one hellova big audience."
About five minutes before drop time my assistant DZSO, who was on the trail end of the drop zone about three kilometers away.
Calls me up on the radio to report he's in position and there are no unauthorized personnel or hazardous obstacles on his end of the drop zone and it's safe for the drop.
I was positioned on the leading edge of the drop zone with the Air Force Combat Control Team (CCT) who were busy taking last minute wind readings and talking with the aircraft formation commander.
At approximately one minute before drop time, the CCT team leader turns to me and says; "Winds 5 knots, visibility five miles, first drop will be vehicles followed by troops five minutes later, aircraft on final approach.
Request permission to drop, sergeant."
I took a deep breath, looked up into the sky, stuck my index finger in my mouth and then held it up in the air for a few moments and replied, "Let'em drop!"
As the first six aircraft flew overhead I began counting the number of parachutes opening up over the drop zone.
Everything seemed to be going just fine when all of a sudden I noticed the last vehicle coming from the last plane in the formation didn't have a deployed parachute. Oh - oh!
Yep, sure enough, the parachute failed to open. And from about 1,200 feet the vehicle tossed and turned, over and over and over, and then...CRASH!
Incredibly, it didn't explode, it just shattered into a million pieces.
Wow! What an impact, never seen that happen before. Cool!
From where I was standing it looked like it wasn't far from where my assistant DZSO was positioned.
And just then I hear him say over the radio (breaking all sorts of military communication
procedures); "Hey Ranger Rick! Did you see that Mother- - - - - - burn in?
That son of a - - - - -landed only about 100 f- - - - - - meters from my a - -!"
Simultaneously, I heard the echo of loud speakers broadcasting his same exact words across the entire drop zone followed by laughter from the crowd of spectators.
It was obvious the sound crew forgot to test and adjust the volume control before the drop. (Yikes!)
We both just about died laughing our butts off at what just happened.
Later, when the airborne operation was over, some colonel or general sitting in the VIP stand (who didn't find it as funny as we did) reported this incident to our battalion commander.
And yep, he sure did chew out our butts, but more of the captain's than mine, ouch!
And it seemed from that day on he never said a cuss word again.
Another incident that comes to mind happened way back in 1984 when I was one of two jumpmasters assigned to a C-130 Hercules aircraft full of paratroopers.
The other jumpmaster was my company commander, who the troops hated and voted (behind his back) the "least popular guy" in the unit.
Obviously (again) not a West Pointer, huh?
Well we took off and were airborne for about an hour or so and it looked liked the altitude winds weren't going to be nice to us.
As they were tossing us around inside the aircraft like we were ping-pong balls.
The ground winds (we were told) started to exceed airborne operations safety requirements, which to me sure sounded like this jump should be canceled.
But no, of course not, the officer who ordered this bird and scheduled this training today still wanted us to try to jump anyway.
No doubt he was probably sitting in his nice cozy office, drinking coffee and gazing out the window and not on this same "rock & roll" bird with us.
Because if he was, I'm sure by now he would have cancelled this jump himself.
Well, after what seemed liked hours of being tossed and knocked around inside the aircraft, almost everyone started to get airsick.
And then came what we were all hoping for, the pilot announces over the intercom, "due to severe winds and turbulence today's jump is cancelled."
"Yahoo," everyone yelled with a sigh of relief, "thank God!"
Unfortunately this cancellation came a bit too late, as many of the troops had already started to vomit their guts out.
And the poor loadmaster, well, he couldn't find enough barf bags in his aircraft to go around for everyone.
And ugh, what a mess we made in his airplane. Ugh!
I was the first one to disconnect my static line from the jump cable and take a seat at the rear of aircraft so I could rest my head between my legs because I puked too.
My CO, who didn't appear to be sick (yet) disconnected his static line and took a seat on the raised back-ramp floor of the aircraft.
From the corner of my eye I could see he was smiling and laughing at the troops who were vomiting, and it seemed like he was enjoying seeing them suffer too.
(Now do you know why he wasn't such a popular fella?)
Then suddenly we started to hit some ferocious turbulence, and I mean this time it was pretty severe.
So severe that it bounced the aircraft around like it was a toy plane and somehow the back-ramp's locking mechanism came undone.
Apparently it must not have been fully locked in place and the ramp, along with my CO sitting on it, started to go down.
I then heard someone scream, "Help! Help me! I can't get up! Help! Someone help me!"
I looked up to see who was yelling and when I saw it was him all I could do was laugh.
I couldn't help him because I was too damn sick and weak to stand up, and boy, was he panicking and screaming his head off.
Luckyily for him the loadmaster was nearby and came to his rescue
by pulling him up and off the ramp and then raising it with the mechanical hand lever
before manually locking it in place.
The CO stood there in front of me scared, shocked and looking like he was about ready to cry.
And then he turns to me and yells, "You asshole, why didn't you get up to help me?"
Well, all I could do was raise my head and say to him, "Why?
You didn't need me, sir. You had a f------ parachute on!"
And yep, you can bet he never forgave me for this.
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