Personal Narrative: My Journey To Airborne School

When I first joined the Army I heard other Soldiers talking about how they were going to go to airborne school after they completed their advanced individual training. I used to think wow these people are crazy why would you want to jump form a perfectly good airplane. But like most young adults no one could tell them anything for they were going to do it regardless. I however didn’t want to go and the Army never offered it to me while I was in training. Soon that would change as I was to report to my new duty station Fort Polk Louisiana.
A year after arriving at Fort Polk I had made a name for myself as one of the fastest runners in the company, I was still nowhere near Olympic level but fast for the Army standards. I was a young Private First Class hoping to get promoted early to specialist but I had little to show for almost a year in service. My sergeant came to me close to the end of the duty day one evening and asked if I would like to go to airborne school, he thought I would do well and it would help me get promoted. I didn’t even think and said yes,
The third and final week is known as jump week, that’s when we would actually exit an airplane. The day had finally came I had my parachute on my back which was so cumbersome and heavy I still remember how my back ached from the weight. The airplane ride up made me so sick I almost threw up, it didn’t help that we were packed in like sardines. By the time the door opened and the jump master told us to stand up and hook up all the fear had left me I simply wanted out of that airplane and to take that parachute off. When he yelled go we all began to exit all the fears I had were gone I was so ready to be done with training. My exit was great and I had a good landing, I completed four more jumps and successfully graduated airborne