Jumping – Enjoy and/or File Under Sunday Silly
Kinda stumbled across this. In honor of our host:
Not quite sure how an old swabbie might elaborate? Oh yeah.. replace skirts at random during the video??? Thanks to Col Brown and FB.
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Jeez….this video must be from the 1960’s.
I have three sons that jumped but I stayed on the ground.
Well, I am an old swabbie and I will elaborate…..GO BLESS ‘EM!
People use to ask..”how high do you get before you jump?” Said I….”Three six packs usually does it.”
I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM UO HERE!
up
must have been the adrenalin.
When I jumped I had a wetsuit, not a parachute.
And ZP, loved the “Shaft” sound track!
OK, I just dated myself.
that isn’t “Shaft”, just some kind of routine funkadelic guitar riff. “Shaft” came out, what. 1970? but the style lasted for years. One of the best soundtracks EVAH.
Comments on Youtube say this was seen at least in the late ’70s. The uniforms look like they are permapress pickle suits instead of starchies to me, but it has been a long time. Somehow the towers don’t look as tall as they do from the ground.
David: I think they look taller from the ground because – if you’re at jump school – you look at them and think, “Holy sh!t – I’ve got to drop from the top of one of those!” (smile)
In the hole pole man!!
Hit The Hole Pole Man, Hit The Hole!!
I slipped the wrong way off the tower and went over the hood of a car and did a perfect PLF in the road. Sargent came running over and yelled
“are you ok, troop”? “uh..yeah”..
“What the hell are you doing in the fucking road, get your ass back over there”
The good old T10 dial-of death! Thank God I only had to use it during jump school and years later at the Canadian Jump School in Edmonton, Alberta. We did an exercise with some Canadian counterparts and they arranged a foreign wing exchange jump. Talk about smiles turned upside down when we found out we were jumping T10’s.
Didn’t see anyone wearing the old white nametapes or yellow-on-black US Army in those photos. I’ve seen photos of at least one LTG wearing those in Vietnam in Jan 1967, so they were apparently still authorized then. Not sure when the Army transitioned to black on OD for both.
Also didn’t see any BDUs, so that means the film couldn’t have been made after about 1981 or 1982.
I’d that guess that film was likely made in the late 1960s or early/mid 1970s. Music sounds right for that time frame.
By the way, ZP – thanks. Brings back a helluva lot of memories. (smile)
Those look like greens to me, so I’d guess 1960s, too.
The Army’s standard field uniform didn’t change that much, appearance-wise, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Ex-PH2 – though the material from which it was made did go through some changes over time. Unless the photo is VERY detailed, about the only way you can tell the time frame is from the nametapes/US Army/badges/rank insignia sewn on them.
Can’t speak for before the early 1960s with certainty, but in the early 1960s white nametapes/badges/rank and yellow-on-black US Army were used. (Believe that was the case in at least part of the 1950s as well, but I’m not sure – I’m not THAT old [smile], and I haven’t researched it in detail.) Sometime during the 1960s, the Army transitioned to black on OD for nametapes/US Army/badges/rank. The next real change appearance-wise was the switch to BDUs in the early 1980s.
The original fatigues were cotton. In the mid-1970s, a perma-press poly/cotton version came into existence and became the issue uniform. Slight difference in color; much lighter; and didn’t fade like the cotton ones.
I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again: now that DoD has let the services move apparently irrevocably away from a common field uniform (gee, thanks USMC – and don’t ever forget that MARPAT was developed for you at the US Army’s Natick Labs), the Army should go back to the OD green fatigues for garrison wear. The field uniform should be a TA-50 issue item – issued on arrival at unit, and turned-in on departure, like field gear – with the specific version issued determined by primary projected mission and geographical location. If a unit deploys outside of it’s primary mission area, unit personnel could simply turn in the issued uniforms and draw new ones of appropriate type for the deployment.
I think my dad’s pictures from his time in Korea “deterring Communist aggression from the north” (c. 1958) show him with white name tape on green.
Otherwise–Uniforms as TA-50. Great, one more thing to do when the balloon goes up; but yeah, you could be right. And for the folks who go up with the balloon?
My understanding (before my time) is that the chocolate chip uniforms were TA-50 for the Gulf War. I seem to recall we wound up with some in our supply room that came back from the gulf.
A lot of soldiers were wearing green TA-50 with desert uniforms when Iraq was invaded; I remember seeing that much on TV.
When I was in (’71-’72) it was black on OD green for the nametags and cotton for the fatigues.
Forrest and Bubba started Basic Training in June of 67 with white name tapes, so there’s that.
Hondo, as I recall the biggest change in utility wear in my frame of reference came in the mid-60’s with the advent of jungle fatigues and jungle boots as well as baseball caps.
A really squared-away Airborne trooper back in the late 50’s and early 60’s wore closely tailored and heavily starched fatigues and a carefully blocked pillbox style field cap. True to form, even with all those extra, blousey pockets on the JF jackets and trousers, tradition dictated they be heavily starched and pressed for garrison soldiers.
They began phasing in jungle fatigues around late ’65. I got my first issue with the 101st in early ’66 in Vietnam. Those dates should be fairly valid Army-wide because Airborne units were generally the first to be issued new clothing and equipment.
Don’t believe the jungles were ever standard initial issue, PT. Believe that they were strictly a unit/theater item – e.g., issued to select units and troops bound for Vietnam. Pretty sure the standard cotton OD fatigues were the initial issue even then.
You’re probably right. I was only in for six months after I came back from ‘Nam and that was with the 82d where I believe you could wear either as duty uniform. All the “Leg” units at Bragg were wearing standard fatigues if memory serves.
Like many a young Screaming Eagle of the time, I went to the 101st-run jump school at Fort Campbell in 1959 where we had no 250 foot towers. I remember some barracks jawboning from the guys who trained at Benning about our being “partially” trained. Our response was that our “Cherry Jump” was from a real airplane flying a helluva lot higher than 250 feet and that the first time we ever looked up and saw an open canopy, it was the real deal.
That usually shut ’em up.
Weather kept my class from using the 250′ towers in 2013, and a buddy had only part of his class use them in 2011.
…but they were still showing this video in the harness shed!
I’ve always had a clue that can date this, “film”, (pre-video) fairly accurately. That’s my future Platoon Leader from B Company 1/503rd Infantry 101st Airborne running in formation at the 1:43 mark. I joined the 101st in October 1972 and he was there. One Brigade (3rd) was still on jump status in 72.
Great memories, Airborne, “Jody”, songs, boots thumping in time on the pavement, and steam rising off the whole formation.
The music dates the film, but it fired me up and lots of other 18 year olds for an Airborne career. We were still using it in the Recruiting Command in 1982.
Ermahgerd…..I wish the school was as short as the video.
Go To The Gig Pit!!!!! Those push-ups were mighty hard with someone walking on your back
My class also had 2 guys get killed in the second jump I think it was. One slept in the bunk over me. He and an SGT were in the stick behind me and when they jumped they got tangled somehow and came straight in. I was on the ground and watched it. They got us all together and put us right back on a plane and we did another jump before we had time to think about it.