Shalom to everyone who reads this!

I must add some more facts to the experience I wrote about named “Did You Jump?”.

I spoke to a Jewish friend at the Shul I attend who had served in the IDF as a Paratrooper and later in the US Army as a Paratrooper medic.

 I explained to him that, for a while, I had been troubled by leaving out a few details about my supervisor, E5, Second Class Petty Officer Villareal, and asked my friend if I should add those details. He replied, “I would add them. If it were me, I would add them.” May there be many blessings upon my friend, the IDF, and Israel! May Mashiach come soon and bring peace for Israel and the world!”

Did you jump?

To any ex-military, please don’t be concerned about this experience; I didn’t have a security clearance, and even now, many daredevil civilians pack parachutes.

After boot camp, I went to school to learn the job I would do in the Navy. In the first session, the instructor introduced and explained the syllabus and then informed us that the last four weeks were dedicated to teaching us how to pack parachutes.

He explained that everyone would be paired with a classmate, work in two-person teams to pack ten parachutes, and everyone in this class would have the opportunity to jump up to five times, with five of the ten parachutes packed by the two of you. You are not required to jump, but you will have that option if you pass the Parachute Jump Fitness test.

When we got to that portion of training, Navy students studying for different jobs would see us packing the parachutes and, during our breaks, would banter with us by asking, “Are you planning to jump out of a perfectly-good-airplane with a parachute that you and another student, packed together? Are you insane or something?”

The instructors didn’t let us practice packing twenty, fifty, or a hundred parachutes to learn how to pack the ten parachutes we would use if we wanted to jump. The first ten we ever packed were the ones we would jump with, and it was clear that of those ten, I didn’t even get to choose which five I would strap on my back and jump out of a perfectly good airplane with!

I didn’t know why they were so strict about that while we were packing the parachutes. However, I figured that out while I was sitting on that mosquito-sized jump training airplane as it was climbing to the one-thousand feet and began circling the jump zone for where our intended landing would occur: The Navy DOESN’T want anyone to think while packing a parachute, well, if I were going to jump with this parachute that we are currently packing, I would insist that we unpack it and start over, but since this is one he is going to jump with, and since he is okay with how it just got packed … LOL!

The day we jumped, the weather conditions were deteriorating, and a storm was coming in. We only had time to make two jumps before the remaining three jumping flights were canceled.

Before jumping out the first time, I was sitting in the webbed bench seat, looking across the aisle at the other students, trying to see if they were nervous like me. I didn’t turn my head; I merely looked to the left, middle, and right by moving my eyes!

Some were looking down, and others had their eyes closed. I didn’t know what they were thinking, but I thought, “Hey, this is a perfectly good airplane; why would a SANE person want to jump out of it with a parachute packed by two students who had never packed parachutes before these ten?”

Even more than that, this would be my first time jumping out of an airplane, and I was about to do it with a parachute that two students packed! It was true that one of the students who packed it was me, but I was only eighteen at the time!

Considering those facts, being one of the students who packed this parachute strapped to my back, I was not so confident when contemplating my current situation! Lol!

The whole purpose for how they train us became clear to me while I was sitting on that airplane, preparing my mind to jump out of a perfect aircraft with a parachute that I assisted a fellow student in packing! This one strapped to my back could be the first one we ever packed!

When I ask myself great questions like the ones I was asking when trying to find inspiration to jump out of this airplane with this parachute on my back, I get great answers:

The parachutes that I would pack in the future if that ever became my job in the Navy would be for use in cases of emergencies: the pilots and or crew would not be in a perfect airplane; they would be in an aircraft that was about to crash, and they want to get out and live, and they would be relying on my ability that I packed their parachute correctly, and that I was confident it would open, sure enough, that I would strap any parachute that I have ever packed to my back and jump with it, so they can rest assured that it was loaded correctly!

Think about that in reverse: if I wouldn’t jump with any one of the parachutes I packed, why would anyone ever want to jump with one I packed?

I thought about all ten parachutes that the two of us packed! Four or five times, we decided to unpack a parachute from within the process and start over on those parachutes. We followed all the rules and checklists. We asked all the appropriate questions during each stage of the packing process before we both agreed that any particular parachute had been packed correctly. We were willing to sign all the paperwork and put a tag on the wholly packed parachute to indicate that this is one of ours to jump with!

When I arrived at my squadron, I had to learn the duties of that assignment. Since our role involved primarily emergency equipment, we worked individually and were not permitted to talk while we conducted our inspections. Once we began a review, no one was allowed to interrupt us; if they did, we would have to start over at the beginning of our inspection.

Since we were in the Navy, while at work, we rarely talked about personal things, but since we are humans, during our lunch or breaks from time to time, we talked.

My first private conversation with my supervisor was when he asked me, “Did you jump?”

I told him, “Yes, but only twice because of the weather.” [First addition here: He stood up at attention, walked with pride and honor to his jacket, reached into his inside pocket and removed a small black sack with drawstring. He walked back with the same pride and honor and sat down. He opened the bag and removed a rectangular prism case. He opened the case] and pulled out the silver polished jumper’s wings he had received for making all five jumps; [Last addition here: He handed me his jumper’s wings. I held and stared at it for about a minute. I had wanted to make all five jumps, but the bad weather had prevented it.] I only received a yellow card with some writing certifying that I had jumped twice, and I handed that to him.

He told me that his last assignment before he came here was packing parachutes for ejection seats. One of them got used by a pilot who had to eject, and his parachute opened. One day, the pilot showed up with a large and expensive bottle of Tequila, my supervisor’s favorite brand of Tequila; the pilot introduced himself, shook his hand, gave him the bottle, and thanked him for saving his life!

My supervisor also said, “Because you jumped, someday, if you decide to make a career in the Navy, you may find yourself at an assignment packing parachutes, and you may have the same experience that I did with that pilot: that is the custom, if they survive using a parachute that you packed, they will show up with your favorite brand of alcohol and thank you!