Live One Day as a Lion

Warning…Harsh language at the end

As the saying goes, “it is better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand days as a lamb.”  Life has a sweet taste when savored after a meal of adventure followed by a swig of daring.  Is it fear that rules over us, or do we grab a hold of what haunts us in the night, stare it straight in the face and give it a wink back?  Yes indeed, let's give it a wink.  

I am still having the absolute best deployment you could ever ask for.  This week I was given the opportunity to jump with a team of PJs, EOD, and SERE Specialists.  How could I ever say no to that?  Now I have to admit it is like most things that I find myself in the middle of….sounds like a great idea at the time, but as it gets closer I start to wonder what the heck I got myself in to. 

At show time I met up with my tandem jump “head guy” and we rehearsed every part of it.  He says, “I am going to put my arm out, then in, then out and we then walk off the ramp.”  I say, “Is it like 321…go…do we go on 1, or after 1, or 1.5?  He snorts back, “No….arm goes out the second time we walk.”  Gotcha!  Then he briefs me on the three most important things: 1) Arch my back when we go, 2) don’t touch anything above and behind your shoulders, and 3) Lift your legs when we land.  He promptly told me if I grab up and back he was going to punch me in the jaw and knock me out.  Awesome!  Thank goodness it did not come to that. 

I have to say that the scariest part of the entire event was the walk to the edge of the ramp.  Of course, we had two “no drops” and had to go back to our seats.  Then on the third attempt it was a go.  As we shuffled forward all I could think about was “Don’t poop my pants, don’t poop my pants.”  Thank goodness…I didn’t poop my pants!  I could feel my heart pumping at over 106 BPM (yes, I checked) as I walked off the edge of a C-130 at 10,500 feet.  It is very much like walking into the waves at IM Florida with 2,000+ of my closest friends.  You just do it.  We promptly did a back flip as I screamed WOOOOHOOOOOO!  It was like nothing I have ever done.  The air becomes eerily quiet and there is a sense of stillness as the ground comes rushing up.  The parachute opens and we guide into the inverted V on the drop zone.  After about a minute we slid into the dirt and the jump was over.  I looked behind and said, “What happened to lift the feet?” 

As I was walking back to the hooch I kept asking myself, "How did I become so lucky?"

Training is going exceptionally well.  MB and I work out 7 days of week using swim, bike, run as the basis of cardio work and strength training to build total fitness.  The end of this past week was a bit of a challenge as both of us were absolutely spent.  After 8 hours of sleep on Friday all was back to normal.  Africa is hot right now and temperatures are close to 100 by 0900.  At 0500 when we run it is already warm and humid with the aroma of burnt trash.   I wasn’t sure how well everything was gelling together until the mini tri we completed today.  1000m swim, 45 minutes on the bike, and 2 mile run.  The bike and run were done on equipment within the gym…I was holding a 7:30 pace and feeling pretty good.

Another week starts tomorrow and this Thursday will mark 3 months of being gone.  Time is flying by!

This deployment has helped build a ton of perspective.  I have learned more from the folks around me in the past 90 days then I have in my past two assignments.  As I was walking through a special operations squadron this was posted on a locker and it really sums up my entire experience.  Quite your whining and HTFU!