AIRBORNE!

This will probably be the first of many posts that feature the military. There are many more events and ceremonies to come over the next year. This is probably the first time that many of you get to see my handsome husband in uniform. When we went to the base on Tuesday morning, we actually pulled up in front of the wrong building. Maura was looking out of the window at the soldiers hanging around outside the building and saying, "There's my daddy!" She could not be convinced that the soldier she'd selected was not her father. Obviously he was dressed like Daddy, so he must be Daddy! We eventually did find Daddy and headed over to the jump site to watch the Airborne school do a qualifying jump. Brent went through Airborne school over ten years ago, so it was like a walk down memory lane for him. He was able to give us all the information about what was happening. This picture is a little out of sequence, but it was the coolest one we took and I didn't want to reload all my pics and didn't want to leave it out. Every dot you see in that great blue sky represents a soldier who is in the midst of an Airborne jump. Each soldier must successfully complete five jumps to be Airborne qualified. A total of 180 guys jump each time, so it was pretty impressive to watch.
Me and the kiddos. As you can see, Tristan was not impressed. He fell asleep moments after arriving at the site and missed all the action. Maura, on the other hand, was SO excited. I told her the day before that we were going to go visit Daddy and watch people jumping out of an airplane and that's the first thing she asked me about that morning when she woke up.
Daddy and Maura taking in the spectacle. Initially, Maura was way more excited about the planes, but when she realized that the little dots in the sky were actually people, she became really interested.

Watching with rapt attention. She was most interested when the guys dropped their ruck sacks from between their legs and they (the packs) hung suspended by a strap to their legs. She kept saying, "They dropped their backpacks!"
The plane is a whole lot closer to us than it looks in the photo. They fly down to 1250 feet, so it feels like they're right over our head. Then you can see the teeny tiny soldiers jump out. It takes about 2 seconds for their parachutes to inflate and then they just drift on down. I don't know that I could ever jump like that. I think I would probably pee my pants before I got out of the plane!
Brent said that 36 guys can jump at a time, so the whole sky looks like it's full of parachutes.

There they go. We waited around long enough to see the first few guys walking back in our direction to board the buses. I couldn't believe how much gear they had. They carried their huge parachute, their rifle and their fully packed ruck sack. It was very impressive! We enjoyed our day at the jump site and then headed back to base for story time at the library. What a change of pace! Maybe someday I'll be able to drive around Fort Benning without getting lost!