The Day's Memorial

Sometimes you just roll out to the DZ with marginal weather knowing you might be grounded. That was kind of my attitude on Sunday of this past weekend. The only reason that I went was on the hope of doing my 400th jump even if it was solo, but sure enough after I got there, the sky opened up and it poured. I have never been one to sit around doing nothing when I could be at home doing something productive or at the hospital volunteering so I was making my plans to leave as the rain stopped and the sky began to clear. About that time I was paged over the intercom to come to the office where I met this really young baby faced guy named Robert. He was showing up to do a re-currency jump and they asked me to help out. Fortunately the weather was not great but improving - it was kinda looking like one of those days where you could end up riding the plane down because of rain or layers of clouds. However, our pilot assured me that we would have a spot and the clouds I saw were going to be above us.

During my pre-brief with Robert we got to know each other as I asked my normal questions to get a feel for his proficiency and if he was going to have any issues in freefall that would need my attention. Well, Robert mentioned that he is in the Army stationed in Iraq and home on emergency family leave after losing his father. Because of the emotion that can come with that I felt compelled to ask if he was sure he was ready to jump to which he replied yes. He is the oldest sibling and just needed some time to get away for himself which I totally understood. So we jump. We reviewed our dive flow and had an uneventful ride to altitude with no weather issues. As we were nearing jump run, I took my helmet off for a sec and told him, "Let's do this one for Pops!" and he gave me a big smile.

We had a pretty good jump, not great from a skills perspective but it was what he needed along with a good landing. It never occured to me through the plane ride up to altitude or during the jump that this was my 400th and it did not really matter. I only remembered after I came back in and took my gear off. But having a chance to give something back to an active member of the US military during his time of need meant a lot this Memorial Day weekend.

Four Hundred