Chapter 2.A

“We are 10 minutes out,” shouted Staff Sargent Mahoney. “Check the person beside you, check yourself, make sure everything is tied down tight. The parachutes should deploy quickly but until they do a human body will move at 122 miles per hour through the sky. Whatever isn’t tied down will get ripped off. Once we land, make your way to the rally point. Remember our code phrase Thunder, and Flash. If someone yells Thunder, you yell Flash. If you don’t yell Flash fast enough then the only flash you will be seeing or hearing is a muzzle flash from a firearm as you get shot repeatedly in the face.

If I die in the jump or am gunned down by Nazis before I hit the rally point then command falls to Sgt. Rowe the new NCO,” said Staff Sargent Mahoney while pointing at the new guy. “He just got off the front lines in Italy and transferred directly to us. The Lieutenant wanted more combat veterans jumping with us so you can thank him when you see him, and you should be thankful that Sgt. Rowe has decided to join us. He stacks up Nazis like cordwood. Sgt. Rowe would you like to say something?”

Sgt. Rowe stood up wearily like an old man and stretched a bit, though I knew him to be in his late 20’s.

“I don’t relish the violence that will happen this day, but I’ve made my peace with God and I recommend you all do the same. I walk in his light and I am an instrument of his hand. No evil can stand up to a man who fights with a righteous cause. I know this to be true,” he said while tapping his CIB on his uniform. A CIB is a Combat Infantry Badge. On the duty uniform, which is what we were wearing now, it looks like a wreath wrapped around a rifle. The badge denoted someone who had fought the enemy and lived.

Sgt. Rowe was obviously insinuating that he had taken care of a whole mess of Nazis by pointing the badge out and he didn’t think much of it. I was glad he was here. I made a note to myself to find the Lieutenant and buy him a beer when this was all over.

Staff Sgt. Mahoney took the philosophical ‘speech floor’ once again walking down the center aisle of the airplane until he got to the door we would be jumping out of. “This,” he said while pointing at a device that looked like a tiny traffic light just to the side of the door, except it only had red and green bulbs on it, no yellow. “We only jump when this light goes green, and not before. Keep your composure people, listen to the NCO’s, remember your training, and you will all be fine. Let’s take out this Nazi scum and get home before Christmas.”

Everyone in the plane excitedly shouted, “CURAHEE!”

“Alright everyone, get ready.”

Outside the window behind Johnson’s head I see a flash. What the hell was that? Then another, and then the sound catches up. It sounded like the gates of hell had just opened up and the sounds are getting closer, a cacophony of zings, whirs, explosions, and metallic whines. The Staff Sargent opens the door and the roar of the wind drowns out our excited voices. The light above the door goes red, meaning don’t jump. Then the plane in formation next to us explodes, the fire from the explosion lights up the inside of the cabin of our plane and our plane jerks around seemingly to avoid debris. Now I’m really freaking out, but before I can say anything one of the other soldiers in my plane starts having a panic attack. I don’t remember his name, he had just joined us a few days prior to get us up to deployment strength. PVT. Ryan is next to him trying to calm him down, but it’s not going to work because at that moment the night sky lights up with tracers all around us.

Out of every window and the open door all we see is German tracers flying in every direction, some of them are cutting right across the cabins of our planes, but if they don’t hit an engine or the pilots the planes can stay flying. Then the tracers are in our cabin cutting a bright line right down the aisle. I lift my legs up as quick as I can and tuck them into my chest to try and avoid the tracers flight, but Neff lifts me up and throws me away from them and then jumps himself. We land on a pile of people who had the same idea. I feel dampness on my chest and do a push up and look down and see blood.

“Oh my God,” I barely whisper, but someone must have heard because I’m yanked to my feet and people are patting my chest trying to find the entry wound.

“It wasn’t him, it was me,” Johnson chokes out behind me leaning against the wall and holding his chest as a red stain slowly spreads out across his uniform below his hands. No, not him, please not him… Light hearted Johnson with the golden stories that always improved our moods and made us laugh. My first instinct is to rush to him, but before I can our whole plane rocks again and the area where Johnson is sitting just disappears in flame as he is sucked away into the night sky, leaving a gaping hole where Johnson had just sat. Then the whole plane tilts downward at a sickening angle. I look up in time to see the staff sergeant clipping people’s parachute release cords to a static line on the ceiling and throwing them out the door. The static line will ensure their parachutes deploy at the right time. I stand up and try to clip my own to the static line, but there is another explosion near the front of the plane and I look toward the cockpit and only see fire. I’m out of time, I didn’t think it would end this way.

Strong hands grab my waist and a strap of my backpack and jerk me back a bit. I turn around and see Neff.

“Time to leave buddy, it’s getting hot in here,” he says way too casually. Before I can reply the fire near the cockpit expands towards us and Neff pushes off hard with his legs carrying me with him right through the ragged tear in the side of the plane that Johnson had fell through. The night sky is ripping us in every direction and as we fall I see scraps of burning debris fly by us at terminal speeds. There is a patch of something especially dense burning in front of us and I wonder when my parachute will deploy, only to realize that we never connected to the static line…

I try to curve my body away from the burning debris that we are falling directly towards but Neff is hanging onto me still and he is creating all kinds of wind resistance that I can’t steer out of. I reach around and pull the extra parachute release on him and kick off of him as hard as I can. Even Neff’s strength can’t hold against the wind resistance that his deploying parachute is creating and he is ripped away from me. His parachute deployment slowing us down combined with the strength of my kick-off helps me easily clear the burning debris that we had been headed towards, and I hope that Neff cleared it too wherever he is... I pull my own parachute release realizing I’m probably way too late and coming in way too fast, but everything is a blur now. My chute yanks me hard as it inflates with the wind and then branches are flying past me, scratching at me, and tearing at my uniform and gear. Something hits my face hard and then I’m yanked to a stop. Everything is distorted and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open…

I wake up a short time later when I feel something hard tap my face. “Hey buddy, quit playing around, come down from there,” someone says, and then something else hits my face but harder this time. I open my eyes and see Neff is throwing pebbles at me, but he is way below me. What the heck is going on? I wonder, but then it all comes back to me, basic training, the tarmac, the plane ride, Johnson, the fall… I look up and see my chute has been run through by at least thirty branches and I’m dangling at least twenty-five feet up, maybe higher. I could die from a fall this high or break both of my legs. Think Ozzy, think! Why am I calling myself by my own fake last name now, this can’t be healthy. The rope!

We all got similar but slightly differing kits, half the squad was given ropes for reasons just like this. I reached into my bag until I got my rope out and tied it off to the branch nearest me. Then I pulled my trench knife which is like an awesome combination between brass knuckles and a large combat knife, and I started cutting away at my parachute strings. When I got down to the last few I wrapped the rope around my waist once, pinched some of it between my ankles, and held it down under one of my armpits just in case. I like redundancies when my life is on the line. Then I cut the remaining strings.