New member with concerns about George ...

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Correct. It goes to show what 46 years will do the the memory part of the brain.

Bill,
From his posts I assume Brian is still an active jumper. That keeps it a little fresher in the old memory banks.
Am I assuming wrong Brian? As for old memory, I don't know how old Brian is.

[stickhauler]

As for me, as to WHY anyone would opt to jump out of a functioning aircraft, my main excuse would be the classic "guy" explanation. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

No, really, at the time, with military pay being what it was, my jump pay equaled a car payment. And after they kicked me out the door on the first jump, the rest were not nearly as bad. I even jumped several times out of a helicopter, and after you got down a hundred feet or so and pulled the cord, it wasn't bad at all.

I was part of a group that tried out the C-131 for jumps, and for some idiotic reason they thought it was a great idea to jump out of the rear side doors. When I hit the slipstream, it slammed me against the rear of the plane something awful, I kinda slid off the side of it. It became evident that using that rear ramp was a much better idea quickly.

[DaveHH]

In 1965 when I was drafted and in basic at Ft Ord. I was told by several people, officers and Sergeants that the main reason for offering airborne was not to get new paratroopers but to break enlistment contracts. Even during WW2 they were exclusive, only taking the small percentage of top soldiers by simply running them into quitting. My buddie Eddie Nunes was a jump instructor before DDay and he told me that they were given orders to take only a certain amount of applicants regardless.
In 1965, as I understood it, people would join up and their enlistment would be for "Brain Surgeon" well the Army had to honor that if you had the qualifications. If you went to airborne and flunked out, all bets were off and you became whatever they wanted at the time, usually 11B10 Light Weapons Infantry. So they just ran you out literally. The guys who made it were what they were looking for anyway.
There just wasn't a compelling need for parachutists beyond SOG and SF people. During the Vietnam War I think that the 173rd did operation Junction City, a real dog and pony show that used a jump as part of the production... err... operation. A few guys really got into it on that one, but most just had a hot walk in the sun. I was up in II Corps when that happened and it was a big deal. The 1st Cav, 101st and 25th were getting nosebleeds for real up in II Corps all the time but Market Garden 2 got the headlines.

[Bill Ricca]

There just wasn't a compelling need for parachutists beyond SOG and SF people. During the Vietnam War I think that the 173rd did operation Junction City, a real dog and pony show that used a jump as part of the productio

The 173d did make a combat jump, but it was political. (A French female newspaper reporter jumped with the 173d).

The problem the Airborne units had then and have now is everything has to be capable of being parachuted. That way an Airborne Unit can be dropped on an enemy in little time. Having that requirement means the Airborne Units have no heavy armor or heavy artillery, thus they lack firepower. That is part of the airborne organization.

Originally the Airborne Units were designed to drop behind enemy lines and take very heavy casualties as they messed up the enemy. In the last 55 years with Political Correctness, that is out of the question.