Airborne Day 1

"What do you wanna be?"

"Airrrrborne!"

Maggots
250' Jump training towers

Officer housing =)
In general i'm glad to be an officer. But this one day in the army, has made me really grateful. While the lower enlisted get to bunk up in the 1960's model barracks, i get to stay in this nice building.

Day 1: Inprocessing.

Wow, with 515 people enrolled in the course, it was up to the group of instructors called "Black Hats or Sergeant Airborne" to help us get our equipment, paperwork, and be briefed before releasing us for the day. It only took them 8 hrs. I complain a lot about the "hurry up and wait", but they do really good work for the Black Hat/student ratio. (PS as students here, we are called "Airborne")

We had a 3 very long briefings today. Most were in the sun. The left side of my face is proof of that. There is no better way to start your summer than having a very think farmers tan on your neck line. I love it.

We have different rules here. For one, you cannot walk. You have to "double time" everywhere you go. If Sergeant Airborne tell you to go to the other side of the building, you run to the other side of the building. Oh, and each time you enter the training area you are required to do 10 pull-ups and 10 pushups, followed by a thunderous “Airborne”. The pull-up bars are conveniently place near each corner. Thanks Sergeant Airborne, how kind.

Monday morning we will have our PT test. I am a little nervous. I’ve been working hard on my run but still. I don’t want to give the Black Hats any excuse to send me home early. (PS we had one person quit yesterday).
Besides the PT test, we will have a series of 3-4 mile runs at a strict 9 minute-mile pace. If you fall behind 2 times, you’re out.

If I make it to week 3, we’ll have 5 real jumps at about 1250 ft. The last jump being at night. While standing in line doing nothing today, I took the liberty of making some small physics calculations. If my parachute doesn’t open, I would hit the ground in 8.8 secs going 192 mph. Of course, that won’t happen. But it’s fun to scare the lower enlisted =).