Airborne (1997) (18 page)

Now, let us suppose that a new paratrooper (in this case an infantryman) has joined one of the infantry units of 1st Brigade/504th Parachute Regiment. Following in-processing, the young man (only males are currently allowed by law in front-line combat units) will probably be assigned to an infantry platoon within one of the brigade’s three battalions. Once settled in his new home, he’s thrown into the fire of airborne life with the 82nd. This includes the eighteen-week alert cycle, as well as a lot of training and numerous field exercises.

Student paratroops completing their first landing at Fryar Drop Zone. The “black hat” instructors are coaching the students into good landing fall positions to avoid injuries.

It is these last two points that the 82nd uses to help make a new paratrooper into a useful device of war. Train and exercise. Train and exercise. Train and exercise. By the time a paratrooper finishes his first tour of duty with the 82nd, he’ll probably both love and hate these words. Love because these are the things that a soldier goes into the Army to do. Hate because they take that soldier away from his home and family. However, these are the things that they do to get and remain combat ready.

The training schedule for a combat paratrooper is impressive. The morning PT runs that started at Jump School are still there, and running at Fort Bragg is just as challenging as at Fort Benning. General Keane (who we met in the previous chapter) has made a point of emphasizing the need for more physical fitness within the units of XVIII Airborne Corps in general, and the 82nd in particular. Every morning and evening, either in formation or alone, you see troopers running to cadence around the post to stay fit and tough. Along with staying fit, there is weapons and tactics skills training. It is a matter of some discomfort to the Army leadership that the Marines tend to establish and maintain their combat skills earlier and at a higher level than comparable Army units. The one real exception to this rule is the airborne. Because of the necessarily high level of readiness associated with their forced-entry missions, they must be trained as well as, or maybe even better than, their Marine counterparts. This means that shooting skills, always a weak point in average soldiers, is heavily emphasized in airborne units. Rather than hosing down a target with bursts of fire from an M16 or M249 SAW, the airborne prefers their troopers to focus on single shots or short bursts to conserve vital ammunition that might have to be resupplied via airdrop.

Paratroops of the 82nd Airborne Division out on a field exercise. The 82nd regularly exercises their personnel to build combat skills and esprit.

The leadership within the 82nd is similarly fanatical about developing other combat skills ranging from land navigation in darkness and poor weather, to cross-training on heavy weapons like machine guns, mortars, and antitank missiles. There also are plenty of assault drills in Fort Bragg’s combat town (an urban-warfare training facility) and field simulation areas, as well as all-night forced-march training.

Somewhere in all of this training, the new paratrooper is also indoctrinated with something of the tradition, history, and folklore of the unit that he has joined. Each of the brigades has a proud airborne combat history ranging from World War II to Desert Storm. Before long, the new trooper will have bonded with his fellow paratroops, his units, and the legend that is the airborne. He is now one of them.

All that’s left now is to test the new trooper. Seeing that combat is both a rare and potentially disastrous way to do this, the leadership of the Army sees to it that the 82nd (or at least some part of it) is included in almost every major field exercise being run around the world. From the Joint Task Force Exercises (JTFEX) supervised by U.S. Atlantic Command (USACOM) to the annual Bright Star multi-national war games run in Egypt, the 82nd is almost always there. In fact, a new 82nd trooper can probably count on being involved in at least three to four such exercises each year. These exercises are the closest thing to actual combat that a typical soldier will experience in his or her Army career. Tops among these exercises is a trip to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Structured much like the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, it is designed to give the infantry the same kinds of force-on-force and live-fire training experiences that armored units get at the NTC. All this is in addition to the other training and alert duties that the young trooper will be involved in.

It probably takes between twelve and eighteen months for the brigade to get a new trooper fully combat ready. But when they are finally finished, it is time to do something to enhance the career of the paratrooper. Sometimes this means promotion to a higher rank or position of responsibility. Most times, though, the process of enhancement involves sending the trooper off to school somewhere to improve professional skills and chances of promotion. From the standpoint of airborne operations, the most interesting of these schools are the Pathfinder and jumpmaster training schools, which teach advanced airborne warfare skills.

When looking at airborne warfare, some folks focus upon the airborne delivery of paratroopers at the expense of fighting skills. This is not without reason. If you cannot get a unit and their gear safely on the ground, then the whole exercise of a combat airdrop will have been wasted.

Unfortunately, the individual skills taught at Jump School are just the beginning of the equation for putting airborne units safely on the ground. When the BAC students we watched at Fort Benning made their first jumps into the Fryar DZ, they did so into a well-controlled and surveyed area which is used regularly. Wartime drops are hardly like those into the Fryar DZ. If experience tells us anything, it is that the process of an airborne unit jumping into combat is barely organized chaos. From the German assault on Maleme Airfield on Crete, to the 82nd and 101st Airborne fighting in hedgerows behind the Normandy beachhead, DZs have been places that few paratroopers look upon with fond memories. It therefore makes sense that you need professionals to minimize the problems of jumping out of aircraft and into a DZ. The folks who make this happen are known as jumpmasters and Pathfinders.

Jumpmasters supervise both the loading and rigging of personnel, equipment, and supplies onto aircraft, and the actual jump/drop operation. They work closely with Air Force loadmasters and Army logisticians to maximize the effectiveness and safety of each airdrop sortie. On the flip side, Pathfinders are the folks who go into a field or other open space, and then survey and set it up for a parachute drop or air assault by helicopters. The Army maintains special schools for both jobs at Fort Benning, and we took the time to look at them both during our visit. Run by the 1/507th, both courses are designed to train officers and NCOs to become the supervisors or middle management of airborne operations. The folks who attend these schools already tend to be highly proficient in the technical aspects of airborne warfare, and want to know more. In particular, they are soldiers that understand the necessity of a small cadre of airborne troopers being able to internally run their operations, without outside interference or influence that might prove disastrous in some dark DZ on the other side of the world. You need special training to be able to coordinate activities like this, and Fort Benning is the place for those classes.

Actually there are two Jumpmaster Schools. The 1/507th runs one at Fort Benning, and the other is located at Fort Bragg. Both utilize the same course material. The Jumpmaster Course is run over a two-week period, and includes some ninety-four hours of classroom and field exercises. Each year about 1,200 personnel enter the course, though only 60 percent actually graduate. It is a tough course, with a lot of supporting academics and documentation required to complete it successfully. Each class is made up of between 26 and 50 students, though this number is dropping, much like BAC class size. In fact, only 1,000 students per year are programmed to take the class from now on. It is an exciting and cerebral kind of class. One that appeals to the academic and tinkerer in many paratroopers. I really like this course!

The core curriculum teaches the students how to package, rig, and load personnel, supplies, and equipment onto aircraft for delivery into a DZ. This may not sound overly difficult until you consider the variety of stuff that an airborne division like the 82nd can take with it into combat. Everything from food and water, to field hospitals and, of course, paratroops. All of these things need to be delivered safely, and the Jumpmaster School is where one acquires the knowledge. For example, there are over a dozen personal weapons containers that can be jumped by paratroops into battle. These are padded container rolls, which help protect a trooper’s personal weapons load during a jump and landing. The most common one fits the basic M16A2 combat rifle that is issued to most of the personnel in the 82nd. There are others, though. These include containers to carry mortars, light machine guns, and even guided missiles. In fact, the newest container, for the new Javelin antitank missile, was just being qualified for use during one of our early visits to Fort Bragg. The largest and most difficult container to handle is the one for the Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM). You have to be at least 5 feet 10/1.75 meters tall to jump with it. Each container, pallet, and load is a different loading and rigging challenge, though, and a qualified jumpmaster must know how to handle them all.

While the Jumpmaster Course sits at the technical extreme of airborne warfare, the Pathfinder program teaches more in the way of field skills. Back in World War II, Pathfinders were the elite of the airborne, dropped in prior to combat jumps to mark the drop zones and provide scouting. Today they do a similar job, though their tools and procedures are far more advanced than those of their World War II brethren. It should be noted, though, that not all the Pathfinder students are paratroopers. In fact, a large percentage of Pathfinders are assigned to airmobile and air cavalry (helicopter) units, since they also use landing zones (LZ) for their operations. Overall, the Pathfinder Course teaches the following skills:

 

The Pathfinder Course is taught in 165.6 hours of instruction at Fort Benning over three weeks. While a BAS certification is not required to take the Pathfinder Course, it is a busy and highly physical curriculum nevertheless. A great deal of field work is carried on during the course, and severely taxes the endurance of even veteran paratroops. Only 618 officers and NCOs are allowed to take the course each year, though the graduation rate of around 82 percent means about 540 new Pathfinders each year for the Army. Each class (there are thirteen each year) is made up of between 24 and 48 students. It is a tough class, but the high graduation rate tells a lot about the professionalism of the “Black Hats” that run the course.

The training that we have discussed in this chapter is really just a small slice of what the people within the 82nd Airborne receive during their careers as soldiers. Nevertheless, I think that we have focused on the specific things that make paratroopers unique in a world crowded with folks who wear uniforms. Airborne troopers are special, much like the Marines and other elite forces that I have spent time with over the years. As part of the small group of personnel entrusted with forced entry onto hostile shores, they have a special trust in the minds of the National Command Authorities and the hearts of the American people. This is why you almost always see paratroopers there first when a crisis erupts overseas. It’s what they have trained to do.