Homeward Bound: The incredible Journey

Well, I'm on my way home again. My second time since October. I'm excited to see family of course and get to spend some time with my son and wife in a more "relaxed" setting. The nuero-surgeon said that I need to be off of my back and am "un-able" to work (his words not mine) for 4 weeks. So I get to come home for a few days today through the 27th of April to be exact. Currently I'm sitting at the USO in Atlanta at 0845 and don't leave until 1600 (4 pm). Needless to say I have some time to kill. My trip will bring me home around 11:20 pm pst. I hope to visit a lot of friends, but mostly to rest, heal and stay fit so that I can come back and make my last jump.

Peter... whaaats happening?

So I have been asked many times what is going to be happening with me since I'm hurt. Well besides a time delay due to obvious reasons not much is changing. First what exactly is the problem. It was for sure confirmed that I have a compression fracture on my T10 vertebrae. The good news is that before I had a 40% reduction on my T12 almost 10 years ago now, and this one is only a 20% reduction. That means less time to recover and it seems to me slightly less pain. I am very able to get around and have probably walked about 3-4 miles each day this weekend which has been nice and I have been told is good for the muscles in my back in the healing process. Mostly my weekends are very uneventful and filled with much walking around and watching movies. So I thought I would let you know my opinion on some new ones so you don't waste your time on the ones that I had a lot of time to waste on.

TMNT - if you liked the turtles, go find old episodes or the old movies. Stay away from this crappy movie. Though if you want to take a nap it may help you if you have trouble sleeping. I almost left the theater in sheer bordom.

Shooter - Liked it. If you like guns and are willing to accept some pretty impossible marksmanship you will like this movie

The Last Mimzy - I liked it, but if you don't like SCI-FI you won't like this. I actually really enjoyed most of the movie until the ending that was a tad out there even for this movie.

I Think I Love My Wife - Retarded, not even worth them putting it on DVD.

300 - See it, but not with your parents or your kids. Fighting scenes are awesome.

The Number 23 - wait for the DVD and rent it, not own it.

Premonition - I liked this movie "because" it was hard to follow. Some may find that annoying

Dead Silence - I went to see this because it was made by the makers of "Saw", but this had none of the greatness that I liked in that movie. In fact I think it was made up of the crappy parts of saw III that didn't even make that film. Needless to say, it sucked. But I will never look at a ventriloquist doll the same.

So now you know what I do with my weekends here at the oh so entertaining Ft Benning GA. Whats funny is that I still have time to kill even with all the movies I see and I still get bored. I wish I were closer to home because I would much rather be doing meaningful things with friends and family on the weekends than watch movies, but until then there isn't much more to do here so I will at least help those of you that read this blog to waste less of your time by only seeing the movies that are worth it.


"So could I get you gentlemen something more to drink, or maybe something to nibble on, some pizza shooters, shrimp poppers or extreme fajitas?"

Back Again?

So in case you haven't heard I made my 4th jump from an airplane with no issues at all. But the landing was a bit harder than I bargained for. My exit was perfect, but on my way down I didn't know that there was someone above me that began to leap frog with me. This is when the amount of air I'm using doesn't allow the jumper above to have as much lift and springs them down below me. Well after that happens the same happens for me as well. Unfortunately I did not realize this until about 30 feet above the ground he shot out in front of me and took the air from my parachute. My canapy immediately lost lift and dropped me straight to the ground from about 2-3 stories up. The landing was hard, but I made it off the drop zone just in time for my buddies to force me to go to the medic because I could barely breath and my back hurt (I know I have been here before). Well long story short and many x-rays later my back is once again in the not so unbroken position. I will be sitting around for about 30 days until it heals all the way. I have one more jump to make to be Airborne qualified and as crazy as some of you may think I am for saying this I'm going to do it. The break is not as bad as my one from the past and the doctor said that I am lucky that I wasn't hurt worse considering the height I dropped from. So if there is any positive that can be seen from this it is that I didn't break even worse.

An Object in Motion...

So yesterday was my first successful exit from an aircraft while in flight. How did it go you ask? Well it was a blast. I jumped out after only waiting for about 5 hours in a harness and spent 45 seconds in the air. In that 45 seconds I fell a total of 1250 feet to land safely back on the earth. I landed very softly and had a great first time experience. I then got back to my bed at about 12 midnight and got up at 3:45 am. Hence the lack of update the day I actually jumped. We only made the one jump due to a wind issue and they lost a guy in some trees and had to spend 4 hours searching for him. So today we did 2 more jumps. One was with combat equipment and one was without. Both were Hollywood jumps meaning 15 people out each side of the aircraft at the same time. The first jump was good in that I didn't get close to anyone and hit a soft spot, but I hit much harder than the day before. My second jump was with a ruck (big backpack) and weapon. This jump was much more chaotic. 2 people got stuck together and had to land together. 2 people colided with each other but recovered and landed fine. 1 person broke a leg. And I hit harder than both times before combined. I had steered to avoid some marshy ground and then prepared to land. I let down my gear on its extension line and I was coming in backwards... fast. I got my feet and knees together, eyes on the horizon, held my slip and waited for the inevitable. I smashed into the ground with about a 2 story building drop force and fell properly, but it hurt like a ... bad. I realeased my chute and just laid there stunned and disoriented with what had just transpired. After a few seconds I tested my legs by lifting them and everything appeared to be fine. I got out of my harness and gathered all my gear and walked about a half mile to the rally point. Tonight I have a "mystery" bump on my wrist, my butt hurts and I'm still feeling like I'm swaying. We get to sleep in tomorrow so hopefully I can recover from this "fun" I had today.

Today's Lesson:

An object in motion remains in motion until great pain has brought it to a hault

A "Jump" ... To Conclusions Mat

Well it has been almost a week since I updated what I have been doing. It has been a pretty busy week and I have been "lazy" again this weekend to recover from the "fun" that we have been having here. After I got rid of my headache from the swing landing trainer we came back to it the next day to finish some people that hadn't completed it yet. I had the "opportunity" to observe and hook people into the harness before getting headaches to call their very own. On Wednesday I was one of only about 110 students that got to be dropped from the 250' tower. Now some may be saying that would be freaky, but I assure you it was a blast. I was thinking and it was like being paid to ride on the biggest ride at the fair. Except this ride didn't keep you attached to anything. Don't worry I didn't get hurt and it was no worse than jumping off a 3 story building (joke).
The next day we moved to learning how to mass exit an aircraft with and without full ruck sack and weapon. This was not what you would call fun, more so uncomfortable than anything else. Somehow walking up 4 flights of stairs with a 35 pount backpack strapped to your front side didn't feel normal. Also jumping with the added weight in that region wasn't all that comforting either. After this we got off early and all we had to do on friday was attend a safety briefing about things you never want to happen to you and rig our gear for our night jump on wednesdy we will do with full gear.
So if all the weather holds out and stays nice, warm and not windy we will jump twice on monday, twice on tuesday and jump at night on wednesday. Then we will graduate on friday unless some jumps get delayed. We have to complete 5 qualifying jumps to graduate so it all depends on the weather for graduation to go as scheduled. Am I nervous? Nah it is only 1250' to the ground and it only takes about 45 seconds to get there. So if I'm scared it won't be for very long anyway. Feet and knees together, eyes on horizon, pull risers to name tape level and pull off a dynamite PLF. I will be fine... trust me.



The guy made a million dollars (I had to finish it)

So today started a new week of training for me here at Airborne School. The first picture here is of the suspended harness. It is a training device that teaches you what it will be like to control the direction of your parachute while in the air and landing. It was quick and painless and gave no clues as to what we would encounter next.
This picture is the Swing Landing Trainer or SLT. It looks harmless enough in the picture, but what you don't know is that the platform is 12 feet high and at the other end of your cable is a rope controlled by the instructor. it is much like a kids swing in the park that you can strap into. The only difference is that at any moment the person pushing you can cut the cables and send you hurdling toward the ground from any height that they so desire. I had my go at it about 10-12 times this afternoon and speaking from experience they should not call it the SLT. They should call it the SYITGAGYAH. aka... "smash you into the ground and give you a headache". My neck feels like mush tonight and I can tell I will be sore soon. Luckily that is said to be the most painful part of Airborne School and I am done with it.

Lazy Sunday!

As much as Airborne school is tiring I love the fact that friday afternoon I'm done for the week. I didn't realize how much a weekend can actually recharge a person until I joined the Army. All through Basic we worked no matter what the day and going to church was close to the only break that you really got from the constant moving. What you ask do I do with my weekend? Well, not much of anything. And after this week I don't feel bad at all. I have officially caught up on Lost, Heroes and The Office and watched 2 movies "Employee of the month" and "Simpler than Fiction". Neither movie was a blockbuster by any means but had their funny moments. I also saw 300 on friday night and that was a good movie if I do say so. Not for the young though, nor the weak of stomach.
I have also been doing some thinking about what I was doing a year ago and realized that it was about a year ago that we went to Alaska. As you can see from the picture a lot has changed since then. I would have never thought I would be on the opposite side of the country if you had asked me then. Especially getting ready to graduate Airborne School. Crazy what a difference 365 days can make. I went from 236 lbs down to 166 lbs back up to about 187 now. Don't think I'm getting fat, because though I have gained weight my pants keep fitting more loose for some reason. I just wanted to clarify so those that were in our competition wouldn't accuse me of letting myself go. Although I don't eat what you may call a low fat diet the amount of physical exersion I'm expected to have still affords me the ability to lose body fat. I do however recognize before anyone points it out that when my level of activity decreases I must lower my intake ever so slightly.
So in just a year I have gone from civilian to soldier, father of 1 to almost father of 2, West coast to east coast (for the time being), Fat to fit and in 2 weeks ground thumper to airborne. What a journey it has been and what a journey it is going to be. I wonder what the next 365 days will bring? On second thought I wonder what the next 45 days will bring. Maybe a year from now on another Lazy Sunday I will find myself reflecting once more.

2 no 6 no 12 ... Bakers Dozen!

Airborne School Has Its Ups and Downs

Mostly downs if you caught the pun. It is very physically demanding and this is only the end of my second day here. the first day we did mock door training. Which is just a very loose mock-up of a plane and you learn the basics of exiting the door of the aircraft. What is most tiring is that you are not allowed to walk anywhere. Which means leaving from the dining facility you must run on a full stomach back to the bay. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining I'm just giving you a feel for what I'm going through. We also run to all the training areas in boots and combat helmet.

Today we jumped from the 34 foot tower. So much fun. Here is a picture and more updates are to come.