Parachutists.

This is coolbert:

In the U.S. Army, perhaps one of the hardest courses, just in terms of physical and mental demands placed upon the soldier, is the basic parachutist course.

A three week course that places a lot of stress upon the aspiring parachutist. This course can be thought of as analogous to a filter mechanism. Only those troops that possess the physical and mental wherewithal are able to complete the course and graduate.

Troops not able to complete the course cannot be considered to be "elite" material.

As was stated, the basic parachutist course is three weeks long.

First is ground and PT [physical training] week. Second is tower week, and the third is jump week. The grad will have to make five jumps on consecutive days to qualify.

During the grueling PT training that is administered, this aspect of the course is explained by the "black hats" [trainers] is this manner, "now, the parachutist in this course is subject to endless and grueling physical training for a reason. All this PT will make your body stronger and you will be much less susceptible to injury when landing while making a parachute jump."

[the aspiring paratrooper must pass a PT test before being admitted into the program to begin with. The novice is tested with regard to push-ups, sit ups, run, and pull-ups. Superior performance is required just to get into the paratrooper course.]

The comments of the "black hats", however, regarding the necessity of extreme PT are erroneous. And the "black hats" will not tell you this, but I have a suspicion that they know it all along.

A lot of research demonstrates that if you had two groups of persons, one group of say 10,000 physically toughened trained paratroopers, and a second group of say 10,000 sedentary and physically inactive persons, both groups jumping out of airplanes at the same time, the injury rate for both groups would be about the same!!

This does fly in the face of intuition, but it is so. And the army knows it and has known this for a long time.

It is true that a paratrooper HAS to be physically robust, strong, and capable of pushing his body beyond normal in an impossible manner.

More important is the fact that when the paratrooper goes into battle and jumps, what he has with him is all they will have. The staff officers will undoubtedly load the paratrooper down with all manner of impedimenta to be carried on the parachutists person.

And this excessive load DOES create a lot of stress when landing [it is common for the paratrooper prior to jumping to be carrying about 150 lbs. of weight on his person beyond what the average stripped down infantryman would carry.

This includes the fighting load, the existence load, and two parachutes. Quite a load at that!! The main concern at this point, upon landing and then moving off into combat is that the paratrooper must carry all that he needs on his back. Superior physical fitness IS a requirement in this instance.

But extreme PT helping to prevent injury to the jumper?? NO!

[the German parachutists of World War Two must have aware of the injury problem.

As a possible remedy, the Germans had a stripped down trooper parachute make the jump carrying one parachute, a dagger, and a pistol.

And that was that.

Combat equipment for the paratrooper and his fellow jumpers would be parachuted separately in specially designed containers, with appropriate colored parachutes signifying what was in the container. Red parachute had medical supplies, white parachute had small arms. Yellow parachute had ammo, etc. This method was not always successful. On Crete, excessive casualties was the result when the German jumpers could not connect with their gear in the containers.]

[That the German paratroopers on Crete were able to defeat the British Commonwealth must be then seen as being amazing. The British troops DID outnumber the German attackers, and DID have Ultra intelligence on the exact time and place of the airborne landings. And yet the Germans DID prevail. This was a very big defeat for the British. And with good reason to be thought so!! Knowing when and where your enemy is attacking, and then having the attacker not able to fully utilize their equipment normally would allow the defender an easy victory. German paratroopers were, as they put it, "nimble as the greyhound, tough as Krupp steel". Crete showed that this WAS SO].

coolbert.