MG Patrick Brady jumps out of a perfectly good airplane at age 85

Major General Patrick Brady skydiving

Retired US Army Major General Patrick Brady, at age 85, decided to jump out of a plane. It looks like he’s having a good time. You might remember that General Brady is, by my count, the most decorated Army officer. He is a recipient of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, several Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Star Medals w/ “V”, 52 Air Medals, and the Purple Heart (among many other non-combat awards). I discussed him in detail in a Valor Friday piece a while back.

Army Times reports;

Army Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Patrick Brady, a Medal of Honor recipient who turns 86 in October, had never jumped out of an airplane before Thursday.

Three of his children have done airplane jumps — two of his daughters as sports parachutists and one of his sons as a soldier, he said.

“It kind of made me the wimp in the family,” quipped Brady, who is, by some counts, the most decorated living veteran. “So, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.”

Brady completed his first jump alongside the Golden Knights, the Army’s parachute team, at the Congressional Medal of Honor Society convention in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Golden Knights offered medal recipients the chance to do tandem jumps at the nearby Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport.

“I’m a helicopter pilot, and so I have dropped out of the sky pretty fast on occasion,” Brady told Military Times. “But I never dropped like that. … I don’t think I’ve ever moved that fast or been in anything that moved that fast in my life, and then the rest of it was just beauty, just sheer beauty.”

Brady had high praise for the team that helped him with the jump, which began from about 12,500 feet in the air.

“As soon as you’re with them for about two seconds, you recognize these guys are pros — not a damn thing we have to worry about,” he said. “You’ve got to remember their instructions, and then the rest of it is just a piece of cake.”

…

Army Staff Sgt. (Ret.) Ty Carter, 42, who received the Medal of Honor for valor in Afghanistan and is a Purple Heart recipient, also had the opportunity to skydive with the Golden Knights on Thursday.

During the Battle of Kamdesh in October 2009, Carter ran at least twice through 100 meters of enemy fire to resupply the ammunition of soldiers pinned down in a Humvee. Carter then defended the vehicle’s position for hours, exiting at one point to rescue a wounded comrade despite facing an onslaught of enemy grenades and machine gun fire.

Then-President Barack Obama awarded Carter the Medal of Honor in 2013. After leaving the Army the following year, Carter became an advocate for those with post-traumatic stress, which he has argued should not be labeled as a disorder.

Speaking to Military Times after the jump, Carter described it as “all-around one of the more excellent experiences in my life.”

“I had never skydived before, and I’ve always been kind of worried about it, because being in the military, I’ve got knee and back issues and, you know, I haven’t had the best luck when it comes to doing things that aren’t exactly safe,” he said. “But I figured that since it is the Golden Knights and they are the best of the best that [it was] completely simple and completely safe.

“I think I was more anxious and nervous about showing up on time than the actual jump,” he added.

Category: Army, Feel Good Stories, Veterans in the news