I Sit in Planes. I Don’t Flee Them.

Continuing my homage to my father-in-law this Veterans Day I’d like to talk about airplanes. Not flying them, but jumping from them.

My father-in-law jumped out of the very first airplane he ever boarded. Prior to arriving at jump school to continue Airborne Ranger training, he had never been on a plane. Yet here, on his maiden voyage, he was being shoved out of a perfectly good aircraft in mid-flight.

I don’t know how many jumps he ultimately did but I do know it had to be a lot. One doesn’t try and shimmy the Exit door open on domestic flights unless there’s a deeply ingrained habit at work.

I would have made a terrible paratrooper. I already don’t like airplanes, and even though I technically wouldn’t be in an airplane if I leaped out of one, I’m not a big fan of screaming towards earth at Mach 9. And boy would I be screaming!

Maybe, and I stress maybe, they could get me to do it if they added a few extra reserve chutes and replaced my main parachute with the one they use to stop the Space Shuttle upon landing.

They’d also have to drop me over a fifty-acre swath of cotton balls standing six stories high. Finally, I’d need to be allowed to deploy my chute before I left the fuselage just so I can make sure it works.

Even then…maybe.

The main concern I have is that I don’t bounce. I’m not Tigger. What if the guy who was in charge of assembling my pack that day was distracted and forgot to attach the rip cord to the parachute? They’d need a spatula to ease me into the tupperware container that would now be doubling as my coffin. Looking like a deep-fried chili burger at my open-lid funeral just isn’t how I want to be remembered.

I prefer that airplanes be parked before I exit and I don’t think I could ever entrust a knapsack with my survival. It blows my mind that my father-in-law actually enjoyed hurdling through the atmosphere and I have infinite respect for those who do this.

Godspeed paratroopers…you have my eternal bewilderment.