W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

Beginning right after reveille, the trainees had been led on a run around the airfield fence. Somebody said that the distance was 5.2 miles, and he believed it. And they made you run until you literally dropped. As often as Steve Koffler had run around the fence, he had never made it all the way without collapsing, and usually throwing up, too.

The running, he had been told, was to develop the muscles of the lower body. The muscles of the upper body were developed in several ways, primarily by doing push-ups. Steve Koffler had come out of Parris Island proud that he could do forty pushups. During parachute training, he had once made it to eighty-six before his arms gave out and he collapsed on his face onto the frozen ground.

But there were other upper-body conditioning exercises. Ten trainees at once picked up a log, about ten inches in diameter, and performed various exercises with it. Most of these involved holding the log at arm’s length above the head. And there was a device that consisted of pipes inserted through large pieces of wood, sort of a ladder mounted parallel to the ground. One moved along this like Tarzan, swinging by hand from one end to the other. The difference being that all Tarzan wore was sort of a little skirt over sort of a jockstrap; but the Para-Marine trainees wore all their field gear, including helmets, full canteens, and Springfield rifles.

There had also been a lot of classroom work. Steve and the others had a good deal of trouble staying awake in classes. Not only were they pretty worn out from all the upper- and lower-body-developing exercises, but the lesson material was pretty dull, too.

When you fell asleep, the penalty was for one of the sergeants to kick the folding chair out from under you; then you had to run around the building with your Springfield held at arm’s length over your head and shout at the top of your lungs, "I will not sleep in class." You did that until the sergeant finally decided you had enough-or you crashed to the frozen earth, unconscious or nauseated.

Steve Koffler would thus remember for the rest of his life a large amount of esoteric military data. For example, he now knew that his parachutes were manufactured by the Switlick Company of the finest silk that money could buy; that his main ‘chute was thirty-five feet in diameter and had twenty-eight panels (each of which was made up of a number of smaller pieces, so that if a rip developed, it would spread no farther than the piece where it started); and that his main ‘chute would cause him to fall through the air at a speed of approximately twenty feet per second. This meant he would strike the ground at approximately 13.5 miles per hour.

The main ‘chute was worn on the back. It was opened upon exiting the airplane by a static line connected to the airplane. This pulled the canopy from its container, and then ripped free. The canopy would then fill with air, with the parachutist suspended beneath it.

If something happened, and the main ‘chute did not deploy, there was a second parachute, worn on the chest. This ‘chute, which had twenty-four panels of the best silk money could buy, was approximately twenty-four feet in diameter. It would slow the descent of a falling body to approximately twenty-five feet per second, which worked out to approximately seventeen miles per hour. This emergency chute was deployed by pulling a D-ring on the front of the emergency ‘chute pack.

If both ‘chutes failed, the sergeants told them, there was no problem. Just bring them to the supply sergeant, and he would exchange them for new ‘chutes.

Since the human body was not designed to encounter the earth in a sudden stop at thirteen and a half miles per hour (or seventeen, if the emergency ‘chute was utilized), the Marine Corps, ever mindful of the welfare of its men, had developed special techniques which permitted the human body to survive under such circumstances.

These were demonstrated; and then, until the correct procedures were automatic, the trainees were permitted to practice them: first they jumped from the back of a moving truck, and later from tall towers, from which they were permitted to leap wearing a parachute harness connected to a cable.

A parachutist’s troubles didn’t stop once he touched the ground.

Once he touched down, he might encounter another hazard. The parachute canopy, which had safely floated him onto the earth at 13.5-or seventeen-miles per hour, had an unhappy tendency to fill up again if a sudden gust of wind took hold of it. The ‘chute would then drag the parachutist along the ground, often on his face, until the gust died down-or the parachutist encountered an immovable object, such as a truck, or possibly a tree.

Because of that hazard, the techniques of "spilling the air from the canopy" had been demonstrated to the trainees, who were then permitted to practice them. This was accomplished by placing the trainee on his back behind the engine of a Navy R4D aircraft. He was strapped into a parachute harness with the parachute canopy stretched out on the ground behind him. The engine of the R4D was then revved up so that prop blast could fill the canopy (held up by an obliging sergeant to facilitate filling). The prop blast dragged the canopy and the Para-Marine trainee across the ground, until he managed to spill the air from it by pulling on the "risers" that connected the harness to the canopy.

Inasmuch as every Para-Marine trainee was a volunteer, it was theoretically possible to un-volunteer-to quit. But PFC Steve Koffler believed that option had been taken away from him as a result of the "extended three-day pass" that had already gotten him in so much trouble with Lieutenant Macklin. If he quit, he would be brought before a court-martial and sentenced to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth.

Several times during his training, he’d actually wondered if Portsmouth-as bad as everybody said it was-could really be worse than Jump School. In fact, on several occasions he’d come close to standing up and screaming at one instructor or another, "Fuck it! I quit! Send me to Portsmouth!"

But for several reasons he had not done that: he believed, for instance, all the horrible things he’d heard about Portsmouth. It was logical that Portsmouth had to be worse than Parris Island and the Jump School; otherwise it would be full of refugees from both places.

The most important reason, however, was Mrs. Dianne Marshall Norman. He went to bed every night thinking of Dianne and all they had done to each other in his bed and on the living room couch, and even on the kitchen table. And he woke up thinking of very much the same thing.

He even called her to mind in the R4D just before he made his first jump. He credited thinking about Dianne not only with keeping him from getting sick to his stomach but from quitting the Para-Marines right there.

He was in love with Dianne. He could not bear the thought of having her learn that he was a craven coward who had not only quit Jump School but had been sentenced to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. He would rather die-say, from a "cigarette roll." That was what they called it when your ‘chute canopy failed to fill with air, and instead twisted around itself until it looked like a cigarette instead of a big mushroom. When that happened, the parachute hardly slowed you down at all, and you went down like a rock, ultimately hitting the ground at something like 125 miles per hour.

And furthermore, once he had won his wings as a Para-Marine, that AWOL business would be forgotten (if he could believe Lieutenant Macklin), and he would have a clean slate. When that happened, he would be eligible for another pass-and maybe even the leave he never got when he graduated from Parris Island. And he could go and be with her.

He had managed to establish communication with her only once since he had started Jump School. On his fourth attempt to call her, he’d gotten her on the phone. The first three times, Bernice or her mother had answered the phone, and he’d just hung up. Dianne seemed glad enough to hear from him, but she told him that her parents and Bernice would not understand his calling her-her having her Leonard and being older and everything-so it would be better if he waited until he got home again, and then maybe they could get together and talk or something, if it could be arranged without making anybody suspicious.