Jump Course (Part 1)

Two weeks ago I started the army's two week jump course. The course entails a week of training and week of parachuting, at the end of which you receive your "wings."

I was expecting it to be something of a break and a nice chance to get out from under our commanders for a while, unfortunately, I was mistaken. We were broken into groups of 8 and given an instructor who we would work with for the two weeks.

*Interesting side note: We were given a female commander, but they broke the groups up according to those who are more strictly religious and those that are not, because the soldiers who are religious can not be touched by girls and therefore were given male instructors.*

Not being particularly religious my group had one of the few female instructors, which turned out to be something of a problem because we had trouble taking her seriously and as a result we were often punished (which was also something of a joke because we are so used to be punished by our commanders that her punishments were laughable).

Our schedule was not as laid back as I had hoped it would be. We started every day around 5:30, but our commanders had us wake up earlier to meet with them before meeting our instructors, and we finished every day around 6 at night. For some reason we did the jump course extremely early in our training. At the same time that we were there there were two other groups who were also particpating in the course - the Anti-Guerilla Warfare unit and the Elite Combat Engineering unit (both of which have been in training now for at least a year). For the other units, who have finished most of their training, the jump course must have been a welcomed break. Whenever they were not with the instructors they were given free time to do as they pleased. My team, on the other hand, was at the will of our commanders, which usually meant a lot of running in gear or various punishments that they deemed necessary.

The course itself can essentially be broken down into various machines or drills that they use to simulate various parts of parachuting. The first thing we learned, and my least favorite, was how to land. We spent hours in a giant sandbox practicing how to roll in every possible direction. When we finally reached a level where everyone could roll to our instructors satisfaction we graduated to platforms of different heights that we would jump off and then roll. Just so we are clear on this, aside from the monotony, this was multiple hours of sweating in the sun and then rolling in sand...not what the grand mental image I had when I heard the words "jump course."

Some of the machines we used were somewhat fun, but the emphasis is on "somewhat" because after doing it once or twice the novelty begins to wear off rather quickly. I took a few pictures of some of the machines because I am sure my descriptions won't really do them justice. Here is a quick rundown of some of the drills we did:

The Little and Big Swing (pictured): The little and big swings are used to simulate all of the different steps from jumping out of the plane until the landing. There is a harness that connects to you and after jumping you feel the straps become taut after two seconds (because there is no actual "skydiving" the parachute is deployed as you exit the plane). On the little swing we practiced jumping with gear and how to deploy the reserve shoot. The big swing has a function that enables the instructors to release the straps so that you will fall to the ground from about 5 or 6 feet up, which is how they simulate the landing.

The Omega (pictured): The Omega is essentially a zip line that they use to simulate landing while drifting to a side or backwards. While on the zip line they tell you to drop and practice your roll in different directions.

The Fan (pictured): The fan is a tower, about 45 feet tall, that serves two purposes. The first is that it can be used to practice landings if there is no wind. However, because there is almost no situation in which there will not be wind the instructors mainly use the machine as a test of courage to see who might have a problem jumping from the plane. (It is called "The Fan" because the fan at the top is connected to the wire that lowers you and the fan helps to slow your descent)

The "Little" and Big Jump Towers: I didn't have the opportunity to take a picture of the jump towers, but the purpose of the towers is to simulate jumping from the plane and to practice releasing your gear and your reserve shoot. The two towers are constructed the same. They look like the section of the plane where the soldiers jump out and have zip lines about 50 yards long. The little tower is about 30 feet high and the big tower is about 50 feet high. After jumping out you zip down the line on a harness and release your gear.