I went to bed last night all p-o'd and depressed. I was dreading the 173d next!
I seem to recall a few multi-death incidents in the mid 1980's. I think we lost 9 guys on a jump in the Mojave in 1986 or 87 from Santa Ana winds??? I remember someone near me landed on a Joshua tree or some other type tree and got speared through the spleen after it went clear through a canteen. The same exercise lost 4 Rangers in Utah due to explosives.
I can remember bigtime casualties on a jump in Turkey in 1983 or 1984, on the first pass but don't recall if any were fatal.
I can also remember a 19 year old falling 1000 ft on a night jump at Ft Bragg in 1987 with no parachute and walking away. My friend was JM on the next jump and found the cut static line; I was DACO and had to get contact the DZ for casualties or reserve activations. There were none. I kept prying for info and the DZSO wanted to know what all the questions were about. I told him about the cut static line on the aircraft. They made more headcounts and inquiries and finally the 19 year old PFC said he wasn't real sure if he had a deployed canopy on the jump. Sure enough there was a non-deployed chute in the pile and no deployed Reserve chutes. True Story.
They draw Hazardous Duty Pay for a reason.
Yeah I went to bed pissed off too cause more and more BCT (Brigade Combat Teams) are swtiching over to SBCT (Stryker Brigade Combat Teams)damn pussification of the Army I tell you
