Airborne All The Way, Every Day!
Monday, October 27, 2003
Note to Straight White Guy: I am a crazy bastard. Not just Airborne, but I've run with the bulls in Pamplona and I was the leader of a bungee-jumping club in Germany.
But I will say this: Airborne personnel tend to be more motivated than "Legs" (non-Airborne personnel are referred to as Legs because they have to walk rather than fly/parachute to a destination). It is a fact. You would have to be very motivated to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane. Think about it.
Outside of serving in SOF, there were two times in my decades in the Army that I have experienced the pleasure of serving with highly motivated troops. That was with Airborne and Cavalry troops. Cavalry Scouts tend to be a breed apart, too. Airborne and Cavalry Scouts have one thing in common. They tend to be always surrounded. When you have to depend on each other for survival (and it is going to take a long time to receive help), you tend to be more focused on the job at hand.
I noticed this same kind of attitude and determination in the Marines I trained in a Marine Expeidtionary Unit-Special Operations Capable (MEU-SOC) a few years ago.