Para_Frog

Part Two - February

“Shit!...SHIT! Right there! Right there! I see em!” Lance Corporal Felipe Rael was looking through the man pack thermal imager, which by 2009 no longer existed in the inventory and whose nomenclature had long since escaped me.

He had seen a group of vehicles and human figures moving in the cold darkness of the Kuwaiti desert night.

My blood turned to ice, and my stomach began to twist into knots. I couldn’t hide my fear – ever – and the guys made fun of me. Not because I freaked out or anything, but because when danger was eminent, I always got the shits. Just like that. I was powerless to prevent it. My Team Leader would always start a very hot operations order by throwing me a roll of toilet paper. That’s how he told everyone the next mission was going to be a bitch. I just took the ribbing. Worked great for keeping extra weight off.

We had been warned by the Intel pukes that a company of Iraqis had moved into our sector. We’d heard that before, and nothing had materialized from the spot reports, but now they had come.

“Where?” I asked.

Felipe stepped aside and I looked through the eyepiece. I saw at least a couple dozen red forms moving through trenches near a police station on the other side of the border from Saudi Arabia. They were perhaps 2000 meters away. Vehicles were moving up towards them, most notably, two self-propelled artillery pieces. I deduced that their numbers would soon blossom.

There were eight of us at Observation Post Six.

“Oh shit.”

Gunnery Sergeant Correll, our platoon leader, pulled out a can of Copenhagen and pinched out half of its contents with three fingers. He shoved most of it into his bottom lip; the rest falling like sawdust onto his flak jacket and cascading down his front. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip and packed the disgusting wad of shit down until he could speak intelligibly.

“Oh fuck yeah.” He grinned, “This’ll be some good shit. Get fire support on the horn Harvey.” I stood dumbfounded. The guy was actually happy we were about to get pounded. How is that possibly normal you sick bastard?

He looked at me, undoubtedly recognizing, possibly even smelling, the fear the enshrouded me. “Any fucking day will do just fine, Harvey. I’m sure the Indians will wait.”

I snapped out of it.

“Roger that Gunny.”

Twelve hours later, I was standing in a circle at the base of the five-story building that served as our perch. Reinforcements were in charge of the outpost and the eight of us who had survived the night were smiling, laughing, chewing Copenhagen like it was going out of style, and to a man we were visibly shaking. The air smelled sickly sweet of a mixture of burning petroleum, explosives, and propellant. By the grace of God, the conscripted artillerymen of the Iraqi Army couldn’t hit their asses with both hands and a roadmap.

It was over. And holy shit what a rush. It would take years to brush off any fear of people’s opinion and vocalize the fact that I found the entire experience fun. Perhaps that is proof positive that I’m not quite right, but in the retrospect of zero casualties – that night was one of the most fun I have ever had.

Some will read that statement and assume I’m off my nut. BASE jumpers will read it and probably get it completely, even if they have never been in combat. I had spent years training, preparing, rehearsing, managing risk, and planning to bring me to that night, that singular life-threatening moment at OP Six and it had executed flawlessly. Now it was time to revel in the moment with those who had survived it with me.

Sound familiar?

That is why I pursued BASE jumping sixteen years later. Having done a million BASE jumps in my mind, I had determined that it was the only place I would come close to replicating that feeling in the absence of war.

I went to see Blondie in Twin Falls shortly after meeting her on the plane on my way back to Boise from Officer Candidate School. As I drove across the Perrine Bridge for the first time, I saw a group of people standing near the middle on the east side, looking over the railing. They were wearing parachutes. I’d been skydiving for a lot of years, and yeah, those must be BASE jumpers. It’s the middle of the friggin day! Are they retarded?

I didn’t wait around to see them jump, I had a gorgeous blonde waiting and priorities are, after all, priorities. When I arrived at Blondie’s, I told her “There were BASE jumpers on the bridge.”

“Oh yeah, they jump ALL the time.” Blondie is my soul mate. As corny as that sounds, anyone who knows us can attest to the fact that there are not two other people on this Earth that would so perfectly put up with us individually. Or at all for that matter. We’re perfect. And she knows every thought in my head before I do. So she asks me, “You wanna go watch em?”

We head down to the visitor’s center on a beautiful fall evening. The nights are still long, so jumpers stay late into the evening doing their thing. I just hover and watch them pack, gather a load, and head out. I get to stand right next to them and watch. It was awesome. No sneaking around in the dark, no running from cops. It was just part of Twin Falls. Amazing.

After watching a load leave the bridge, we walked back to the packing area. There was a very attractive European woman packing all alone, so we walked over. Having skydived for so long, the one thing I DID know about BASE was that one of the secrets to success was in the packing.

“Can I watch you pack?” I asked, not knowing if it was some secret ritual or what.

“Sure!” She said.

So Blondie and I sat and watched her pack. I had no idea what the hell she was doing. I’d flat packed, and yeah, it looked like that a little, but it was so pretty. No other word to describe it. The symmetry, the deliberate nature with which she made every fold; it was beautiful. When I packed for skydiving, it was a ball of shit I shoved in a bag. Heading? Who gives a shit? This was very intriguing to me.

Over the next few months, that cycle continued. I hovered, watched, asked hopefully intelligent questions, did some research, and got to know a few jumpers. I met Jamie, some friends of his from Cleveland – John and Shari, this very talented and very enthusiastic guy named Miles Daisher, and some really really big pointedly sarcastic fucker everyone called Tree. They were all very nice. They answered questions that they had all answered a thousand times, and they never once dismissed me for being some dumbass with a death wish. I wasn’t in any hurry, and I suppose they didn’t perceive I would sully the sport through lack of due diligence. Every time I came to Twin, I looked for this group. Sometimes I found them; sometimes I bumped into traveling jumpers. I would spend entire days watching people just practicing flat and stable. Hell, I still do. I enjoy watching people BASE jump.

Over the winter, I asked around my dropzone about BASE jumping. As it turned out, the DZO had done a few jumps at Perrine. He even had a BASE rig for sale. There was a regular BASE jumper at the DZ, but he had no interest in addressing my curiosity, and I don’t beg for anything in my life. Brian, the DZO, let me borrow the rig to take it to Twin and have it looked over by some of my new BASE acquaintances – they weren’t friends yet.

One weekend, I took it down with me to Twin. It was February. February 24th to be exact. I’d arrived the evening before and headed to Blondie’s. I got up early Saturday and headed to the bridge. She’d catch up later.

When I got there, there was only one jumper. It was cold and overcast. The conditions were fine for jumping, but it wasn’t premier hanging out weather. I approached this jumper, whose name I won’t use since I haven’t talked to him about this article, and asked him if I could…you guessed it, watch him pack. He had no problem with it and even struck up a conversation.

Have you ever met someone about whom you had heard and had no idea you were talking to them? Yeah. Wish I could go back to that first day and not be such a dumbass. Simply put, the man was a legend in my business - revered by the warrior class. My dad still wants his autograph, and it has nothing to do with BASE jumping. Add to that he’s just one of the nicest people you’ll meet in our sport…anyway…

We talked while he packed. He asked my story. I gave it. Talked about my background, my admiration of the sport. I brought up the rig I’d dragged down from Boise. It was a Perigee II with a Consolidated Rigging Mojo 280 in it. An old-assed Mojo 280. I later found out that rig had bounced around a lot in the BASE world, and it’s a testament to the manufacturing that it was still as solid as it was new. I asked if he’d look it over and he agreed. I brought it over and dumped it out.

He laid it out, checked it over very meticulously, and said “Well, let’s pack it up.”

He started packing it and telling me about every step of the process. I tried as hard as I could to absorb what he was telling me, but as anyone who has ever learned to pack knows…you’re NOT going to get it the first, or first fifty, times. About the time we were to the reduction folds, a guy walked over. I recognized him from his website. It was Tom.

The stupid high-school politics that insist on being a part of BASE jumping have included Tom catching a lot of shit. Some deserved, I’m sure, as we all own. But one thing about The Harvey – I have, and always will, judge things and people of their own merit. Beginning on that cold, dull, February day, and ever since, Tom has been nothing but helpful to me. He has never done me wrong personally, and I number him among the select few people in this life I call friends. That very group includes people who vehemently dislike each other for any number of reasons. As I have said before, he’s always welcome at my exit point. And if one of my friends who dislike him is there, I am confident they will keep their opinion to themselves out of respect for my apathy to it. Or out of the knowledge that I will throat punch them if they don’t. Whatever. My exit point will be a happy place.

Tom knew the jumper who was packing the rig. He asked about the rig, he asked about the big meathead who was watching him pack. Tom recognized something that I did not, and he exercised a concern he had learned over hundreds of jumps. He was watching a gate keeper of BASE slowly opening the gate to allow someone in. I was oblivious to what was transpiring.

There was tacit concern in Tom’s dialog with my new acquaintance, but I recognized a level of respect that Tom had for him. Looking back, I see now that Tom trusted his judgment. Probably due more to whom he was as a man than as a BASE jumper.

Some other jumpers showed up who were meeting up with Tom. Introductions were made. There was Bill, and Collin, and a fella from Ireland taking Tom’s BASE course. They were all happy, and enthusiastic, and immediately felt like my kind of people. Everyone stood around and chatted about completely random things. The stories were bawdy and the language coarse. Yeah, my kind of people.

When Tom’s group walked away to address some items with his student, the jumper who had just closed what was soon-to-be my rig looked at me and said “So you want me to PCA you?”

“What, now?”

“Yeah.”

“Um, yeah, well, shit…YEAH!”

My heart started trying to jump out of my chest. Holy shit. Am I ready for this?

I mean, I’m good under canopy, I’ve done some homework, I’m good in stressful situations. Shit. Am I ready for this?

“You got boots and a helmet?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I brought them down.”

It had been my intention to watch and learn until I was ready, then try a hand-held - all by my lonesome. It’s a long story, and nothing I would ever recommend, but the most common way for me to have learned anything in my life was through self-teaching. I was never too proud to ask questions and then re-ask them. It’s just how I’m wired. I just DO things. Once that was out of the way, I wanted to take a FJC.

But here I was. About to be death camped – and I hadn’t even ever heard the term.

I ran to the car (for some reason I felt hurried – as if my new BASE friend would change his mind). The first thing I grabbed was my phone. I called Blondie.

“Hey baby? Get down here. I’m going to jump right now.”

“Seriously? Oh boy. OK, I’ll be right there.”

The Army had just made a transition to the Army Combat Uniform. It’s a digitized camouflage that was initially developed by the Marine Corps and adopted because of its superior cloaking ability. The flipside to a re-fielding of new uniforms was that it leaves you with a huge surplus of the old ones. The Battle Dress Uniform, as the old ones are called, is a very utilitarian, comfortable garment. Perfect for parachuting into “wilderness” or other such nonsense. I grabbed a pair and put them on – having NO idea that they had become the scourge of BASE jumping over the previous years and a subject of much criticism.

The dude about to put me off just kinda looked at me. I had no clue why he had that look on his face. I was a billboard for newbie BASE jumpers. I looked like a tool. The whole thing was scripted perfectly. Quite Harvey-esque if I say so myself.

I put on boots and a hoodie, grabbed my snowboard helmet, and marched over to my friend. He had donned his rig and looked ready to go. He handed me my rig and I put it on. Felt just like any other rig, but more comfortable. The single canopy was lighter, and this thing was perfectly sized for me – I mean perfect – and that’s no small task. I’m not a slight guy. (The nickname Bacongrease will be addressed in a later chapter – Moab).

He gave me a very thorough gear check, looked at me, and said “Let’s practice your exit.”

“OK.”

My heart was pounding, and my face was flush. I couldn’t remember the last time I was scared. And there was no doubt about it, I was scared shitless. As I said before, and as anyone who’s since heard me utter the infamous words “I hate objects” knows, I am never too proud to admit fear. If anyone had asked, I would have gladly told the just how freaked out I was feeling. I have been scared of heights my entire life - I possess a paralyzing fear of them. It has been a struggle to overcome it various situations my entire life, but I have always managed to. Special Operations is no place for acrophobes, and that's where I've been most of my adult life.

The next time any of you are at the Perrine with me, take note of where I’m standing if I’m not wearing a rig. You will never see me on the rail. I mean, come on, bolts fail right? That thing has GOT to just fall off at some point, doesn’t it? It’s old and everything, you know. I just don’t want to take my chances. I pretty much affix my ass to the Jersey barriers next to the roadway. I don’t like high places.

I do, however, have a great deal of faith in the single parachute container system. When I have one on, configured correctly for the altitude, I will climb around on anything like a monkey.

We walked from the visitor’s center to the path under the bridge. We stopped at the lower overlook and he pointed out the landing area to me. I’d seen it before, but now someone was there to point things out to me.

“See those bushes?” He pointed to the tree line between the beach and the LZ, “Yeah, they’re trees.” He said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, the height is deceptive. They’re pretty tall, so naturally, stay away from them.”

The wind was blowing out of the west, so I knew my jump would require a 180 degree turn. I asked him about it.

“Yeah, just fly straight out and com into a normal right approach. Make sure you’re taking the toggles and coming ALL the way down with the right, and let up all the way with the left. These canopies turn a lot slower than you’re used to.”

He made me show him the motion of steering a BASE canopy. Left turn, right turn, flare. Got it.

Blondie showed up right about then. She gave me a kiss and saw the grin on my face. I have no idea how scared she really was for me. She never showed it. She was happy that I was happy. That was all.

I introduced her to my friend, and he told me to come up the stairs to the first landing with him.

“This rail is just like the one at the exit point, so you can practice climbing over here.”

That was a relief. Climbing over a thin metal railing to a three-inch concrete lip 486 feet above a very certain and very violent death is not a natural act. I had no idea what it would feel like when I did it. It would be nice to practice two feet above the ground.

I practiced a couple of times while my friend explained everything to me. Hands on the vertical bars, eyes on the horizon, hips forward, breathe. It was quickly getting very real. I was beginning to wonder if I’d actually enjoy the experience.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.” I breathed, completely unsure of my answer.

We walked the big walk. That stretch from the stairs to the exit point. The one that is long when you begin the sport because of the anxiety, and long when you’ve jumped it a hundred times because of the, well, anxiety. Blondie followed, snapping pictures. I’m sure I asked questions of my friend to break the silence, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they may have been. The walk seemed like it would never end, and there was at least a small part of me deep inside that kinda hoped it wouldn’t.

Then we were there, middle of the bridge, over the Snake River, very little wind, looking over the edge. Between the uncharacteristically few cars on the bridge, it was almost silent. That was a very big emptiness from where I stood to the river below. I had butterflies the size of vultures.

He went over the flight pattern again. He pointed down the river, pointed out landmarks, pointed out Jamie’s flag that served as a wind indicator. He covered the big issues. Dropped toggles, line twists (however unlikely), most things that had a reasonable reality of occurring. And then it was time.

“Yeah ready?”

“yeah.”

I grabbed Blondie and gave her a long kiss.

“Have fun baby! I’m so excited!” She said.

“I love you. Be right back.” I told her.

I still kiss her and say that before every jump. Always last. Even after I hug and kiss all the kids if they happen to be there, although, BASE has become routine for them. The coolness rubbed off a long time ago.

My buddy grabbed my pilot chute and configured the bridle for a PCA. A PCA is a pilot chute assisted jump. A living static line basically. Someone holds your pilot chute and bridle when you exit. They essentially pull your parachute out before releasing the bridle/pilot chute. It takes away the need for adequate airspeed to transfer into pilot chute pull force. Most BASE jumpers made their first jump this way.

When he had everything addressed to his liking, he looked at me. “Ready when you are.”

“OK.”

I turned to the rail and put my hands on top. I took a very deep breath and let it out. Then I climbed over. I made a conscious effort to focus my vision on the railing, and the ledge - anything but the void directly beneath me.

I wiggled my way into some semblance of position facing away from the bridge. I was hunched over and as rigid as steel.

“Stand up straight. Head high and eyes on the horizon.” I was told.

I stood up straight and the weight of my body on my hands lessened. My ghetto booty was no longer jammed into the railing either. This was fairly comfortable. Nice.

“PC is clear, so whenever you’re ready.”

What? You mean I have to decide when to go? What the hell man?

I looked down.

Wow.

What the fuck am I doing? I better like this.

I looked to the horizon.

“Three…”

“Two…”

“One…”

“See-ya.”

I pushed off.

Silence. Nothing at all.

My face, in fact my entire head, was suddenly burning. Minutes turned into hours.

Then the bottom fell out.

When my brain realized I was falling, accelerating rapidly, my senses began to work again. The walls of the canyon blurred. The superstructure of the bridge began to rush towards me. Things began to happen very fast.

There was a screaming in my head. Not an actual sound, but the demonic shrieking that accompanies mortal fear, which in turn accompanies a loss of control.

I was no longer in control of anything. I needed a parachute or I would die, no matter what I did.

I didn’t notice any opening shock, but I remember the sound. There is no equivalent sound in existence - nylon fabric inflating and coming under the strain of perfectly rationed suspension lines. Everything slowed down. There was a parachute over my head. Hey! I know what to do with one of those!

I grabbed the toggles from the Velcro and began flying. Suddenly the experience became one that I controlled. I love flight, and the view was spectacular. I flew up the river until I felt I could turn base/final right to the flag. It was experienced muscle memory that made it so easy. And the reason skydiving is almost universally considered a prerequisite to BASE jumping.

I carved a sweet, and perfectly judged circle over the trees to final. I flared and stood it up about 10 feet from Jamie’s flag. The only sound was that faithful nylon, softly collapsing on the ground behind me, its burden shed.

I was smiling so hard my face hurt. I looked up at the bridge.

“Woo-hoo!” I heard Blondie yell.

I’d done it. I had made a BASE jump.

The guy who had just introduced me to the sport climbed over and jumped. He landed right next to me, walked over and gave me a hug.

“Welcome to BASE.”

The guys helping Tom, and Tom’s student all jumped while we were packing our rigs up. One at a time, they came over and gave me a hug. “Nice jump! Welcome to BASE.” I was suddenly a part of something special.

We climbed up the side of the canyon having all sorts of discussions. Mostly guys asked me things about me. They were feeling me out. They wanted to know who this new guy was, incase I stuck around.

When we arrived at the top, we walked over to the packing area. Blondie was there. She gave me a huge hug. “How was it?!?” She asked.

“It was awesome. That was so fun.”

Tom walked over. “Hey, why don’t you guys come by the house tonight? All these guys will be there.”

“Sure! What do I need to bring?”

“Whatever you’re drinking. We’re eating tri-tip.”

Naturally, I picked up a fifth of Patron Silver - the elixir of the Gods of war and debauchery. Blondie and I arrived at Tom’s house, met his wonderful wife, and had a fantastic dinner. The characters we met there were one of a kind, especially this noisy fellow named Abbie. At one point (after the Patron was gone) he managed to convince another jumper that he could remove a cyst from his arm by smashing it with a big-assed book. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Fucking BASE jumpers. I liked these odd people. They’re like brain-damaged Jarheads. Yeah, I might stick around.