Airborne, week 1

I can’t believe week 1 is finally over. This experience has been a lot more difficult than I thought. Wow. My body is so sore! They have strict rules here so I don’t have pictures to show you. We are only allowed to carry a few things on our person, and a camera isn’t one of them. If your caught with extra stuff, Sergeant Airborne doesn’t like it.
Monday first call was at 0330. We did our PT test. I was the most nervous about this part, but it turned out to be the least of my worries. Once we past, we all lined up. Sergeant Airborne said “now that you past the PT test, you can all do PT!” “Oh, no” I thought. They smoked us pretty good that first morning. We broke for breakfast then, in full uniform, we jogged out to the training area. It is located about a ¼ mile away. We started on the 32 ft tower, practicing our exits out of a “mock plane”. They have a pulley system to which we are attached via our harness. It was pretty fun.
Tuesday I injured my left IT band. I have had right IT band problems so I recognized the problem instantly and starting stretching the area. If you have never experience an IT problem before, consider yourself lucky. Symptoms can include intense pain in the outer part of your knee. It is often caused by “too much, too fast”. I knew that if I said anything about it, I would most likely be dropped. So with many prayers, Motrin, intermitted resting, and stretching, I was able to mostly solve the problem by Thursday. However, the worse part of the day was still the formation runs (in boots). The heavy boots and slow-shuffle movements, didn’t allow my knee to recover quickly. I hope the worst is over.
Wednesday we finished up the 32 ft tower jumps
Thursday we started to learn about the PLF – parachute landing fall. It sounds like it’s tough on your body and my muscles all agree. Wow, I thought the formation runs were bad! Here’s the concept of the PLF: A way to land and dissipate the energy from your fall. The parachutes that we use here fall about 15-20 mph, plus you have the weight of your gear on. All that combined makes for a rough landing.
Friday we didn’t do much, but the day still dragged on until 1830!
The weekend is finally here and I’m doing all I can to stay off of my feet. Next week we have the swing landing training, basically more throwing my sore bodying onto the ground. It sounds like fun huh? Haha. Airborne!