In a jump aircraft there is a pair of lights, red and green, that assist the Jumpmaster in knowing when the aircraft is safely over the intended Drop Zone (DZ). The light is red when it is unsafe to jump, and green when it is safe.
Part of the Jumpmaster’s duties is to watch the light to make sure it is green as his men exit the aircraft, and stop the jumpers immediately when the light changes to red. This procedure is not taken lightly.
Yet, Red Light Randy let a man exit on a red light at the front of the line of jumpers – out early, as they termed it! Thankfully, in the end, nobody was injured – except perhaps the Jumpmaster’s pride. And this is how the incident happened.
As fate dictated, we had a new Squadron Commander who believed in getting the men back to some basics to keep them proficient and check their attitudes from wandering too far into the sublime nature of being a world-class counter-terrorist commando unit. The men would not like it… but the men would jump!
The men of Delta’s A-Squadron were disgruntled about the prospect of having to make a low-level static-line parachute jump as opposed to the usual “Sky God” High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jumps that they were accustomed to. They (perhaps) felt like they were just a little too cool to take a step back to the basics and perform a basic airborne low-level drop like the “rookies” in the 82nd Airborne also stationed at Fort Bragg, NC.
We, the men of A-Squadron’s Bravo Assault Team, importuned our Team Leader (Team Daddy) to find us an alternative activity of sufficient magnitude to preclude us from the dreaded and upcoming static-line parachute operation. He politely refused. Team Daddy Mac was simply another purist at heart and agreed with the old man’s penchant for steering toward the basics.
We kicked a tiny rock and played a tiny fiddle to ease our blues over the matter, and took to chanting an old Kris Kross rap song: Jump
“Daddy Mac’ll make us, jump, jump… Mac Dad’ll make us jump, jump…”
I guess you just had to be there.
Fine young Randall M. was selected to be the Jumpmaster for the Squadron for the simple fact that he was one of the newest men to arrive to Delta from one of the Army’s Green Beret units. He therefore had practices the static-line jump technique more recently. The plan was for half of the Squadron to jump in the AM, and the other half in the PM; I was part of the morning lift.
I felt that the morning parachute operations went just swimmingly, with Randall performing all of his Jumpmaster duties with the utmost confidence and professionalism. My teammates and I retired afterwards to the safety and tranquility of our team room, all the while murmuring: “Daddy Mac’ll make us, jump, jump…” ad nauseam.
But then, suddenly, call came for me over a satellite phone from the Drop Zone. Someone had information to report to me. Back then only official entities had satellite communications capabilities.
For all the formality, on the line was one of the PM jumpers who just HAD to report to me that Randall M. had accidentally allowed his first jumper to exit on a red light; he wanted nothing more than to report the incident to me for the sake of possible cartoon material.
Related:The highjacked aircraft hoax that alerted Delta Force
I could appreciate that, so I set down immediately to work on a frame that I had completed and hung on the bulletin board well before the other jumpers arrived. Randall “Red Light” M. was the first to laugh and laugh the longest!
And yet it happened!
By Almighty God and with Honor,
geo sends
Feature Image: Author getting in-flight inspection prior to static-line jump. The jump lights are located just to the right of the round personnel door window in the right side of the photograph. (Photo courtesy of author)
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