Paratroopers train for upcoming mass airborne jump in Iraq

With Iraq winding down to a slow pulse for American forces, this is some great training. ~pl

by Spc.

Michael J. MacLeod

1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO, USD- C

CAMP RAMADI, Iraq — “Black hat” instruc­tors from the U.S. Army’s elite Advanced Airborne School refreshed the parachuting skills of paratroopers here Friday to prepare them for a tactical airborne exercise soon to follow.

Three j umpmaster instructors from the Fort Bragg parachut­ing school recently trav­eled to Camp Ramadi, where they taught a one­day, basic airborne skills refresher course to paratroopers of 1st Bri­gade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

“You want to knock the dust off (airborne) skills and bring them to the level of proficiency where they need to be,” said Sgt. 1st Class Robert Shultz, air movement operations committee chief for the Advanced Airborne School and lead instructor conducting the training at Camp Ramadi. “It’s a perishable skill, like marksmanship or physical training. It’s something you need to be on top of all the time,” he said.

Instruc­tors led the paratroop­ers in a series of exercises, simulating every move­ment that a paratrooper must make before, during and after a jump to exercise muscle memo­ry, said Shultz.

Paratroopers practiced parachute landing falls — a way to safely roll when landing to dissipate the energy of impact. They also received a brief on how to exit the aircraft under various scenarios, and then practiced mass exiting from a training apparatus; designed to simulate a C-130 aircraft.

The last skill paratroop­ers reviewed was rigging their packs with a har­ness that allows them to lower their packs to the ground before they land, thus preventing injury and protecting equip­ment.

“To get these guys out here touching their equipment, rigging their stuff up, putting their parachute on, makes them feel like paratroop­ers again,” said Schultz.

“They’re out here (in Iraq) doing different things.”

Sgt. Brandon Reynolds, a mortarman with 2nd Battalion, 504th Para­chute Infantry Regi­ment, said he is looking forward to the jump. A paratrooper since 2006, Reynolds said he loves being a paratrooper with the 82nd because of the high standards of soldier­ing they uphold.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to come out here and jump and show the Iraqis exactly what an airborne division can do,” he said.

The legacy unit of 1st BCT, 504th PIR, has five jumps into combat zones under its belt, including four during World War II and one into Panama in 1989.

If executed as planned, the 1st BCT training exercise could be the largest mass parachute jump into a combat zone since the paratroopers of 173rd Airborne Brigade dropped onto Bashur Airfield in northern Iraq March 26, 2003; a combat jump known as Opera­tion Northern Delay.

According to the 173rd Web site, nearly 1,000 paratroopers took part in that operation. More than 500 devil paratroopers are expected to jump at this one.

photos by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod/1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO, USD-C

Staff Sgt. Victor Vasquez , a jumpmaster instructor with Fort Bragg’s Advanced Airborne School, describes how to properly fit protective padding in a paratrooperís helmet prior to jumping Friday, during a basic airborne skills refresher course he and other instructors are teaching to paratroopers with 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, stationed at Camp Ramadi, Iraq. The paratroopers are preparing for an airborne training exercise later in February in Iraq.