Why AIRBORNE School is so Hard?

all paratroopers and special operations forces must be airborne qualified let's discuss how hard airborne school is with an emphasis on phases key events physical fitness sleep and food deprivation harassment and then we'll finish with a video of a mass tactical airborne operation despite all of my military accomplishments whenever i would visit home my father would introduce me to his friends with a reference to airborne school and of course you remember my son the paratrooper although airborne school was probably the easiest school i ever attended to my dad and to thousands of other soldiers and their families it was the highlight of my career let's start with phases airborne school is located at fort benning georgia and is three weeks long the first week is ground week the second week is tower week and the third week is jump week airborne school starts off with a physical fitness test which is administered by the airborne instructors also known as black hats and then you spend the next four and a half days practicing your points of performance and what is called the plf or parachute landing fall military parachuting is not like civilian skydiving and having a fun experience it's all about getting combat power to the ground as quickly as possible and because you fall quickly you also land hard and this is why it is so important to do a good plf or parachute landing fall you will practice plfs all day you will do front plfs side plfs backwards plfs then you will do plfs from sidewalks and platforms and then from the lateral drift apparatus if you don't break your ankle or hurt your back and knees from doing hundreds of these plfs you also get to learn how to put on a parachute you learn about actions in the airplane like loading seating hooking your parachute static line to the aircraft and how to exit the aircraft even though it's a tower and this is technically ground weak you also get to jump out of the 34 foot tower during the second week of airborne school you will jump out of the 34 foot tower many more times you also get to practice your plf some more via the swing landing trainer this is where motivated airborne students get to swing from a platform and then the cadre releases them to the ground so they can practice their plfs but if you are a jerk or an uncooperative student the black hats will drop you like a bag of rocks you also spend a few hours in the suspended harness and finally if the weather cooperates you are put into a parachute hoisted up 250 feet and released to fall to the ground and again practice your plf third week of airborne school is the only fun week this is because you get to jump depending on the weather you will jump five times in order to graduate three jumps are hollywood meaning without combat gear two are with combat gear and a rifle your first four jumps are a daytime and your last jump is at night combat equipment let's move on to physical fitness every day at airborne school you will do morning pt i remember pt being very easy and for sure it was old school stretching calisthenics and a three to four mile run runs are incredibly slow nicknamed the airborne shuffle and are designed to strengthen knees and ankles though i think it actually does the opposite there is zero food or sleep deprivation at airborne school when i went through airborne school we would do five chin-ups before each meal if you are not jumping at night you have your evenings and weekends free while at airborne school i remember pt formation being very early like 5 or 5 30 but i also remember being released to clean barracks at 1800 officers usually stay in the boqs or base officer quarters and the rest of us stayed in open bay barracks i went through airborne school as a cadet when i was 18 years old just after my freshman year generally the cadets and privates get extra duties after training which we generally deserve and benefited from and this is where i learned to polish a tile floor like a boss there is minimal harassment at airborne school but the black cats do not have a sense of humor for the most part if we got smoked we deserved it there is a lot of conventional army false motivation at airborne school you have to sing cadences loud you have to sound off instructors talk to you at prayed rest and use the knife hand to point and they say everything is hua or airborne even as a young paratrooper i found this type of leadership in genuine and the motivation false but i just played the game cooperate and graduate i generally tell everyone that airborne school is three hours of information jammed into three weeks of monotonous training but nonetheless it is a prerequisite for moving onward and upward and shooting guns and jumping out of airplanes beats having a normal job let's finish off with a clip of a mass tactical airborne operation this one is daytime so we can better see what happens [Music] so [Music] [Music] never forget that airborne is not the mission itself it is simply a way to get to work a way to get to the battlefield the real mission starts once you land okay there you have it an executive summary of airborne school let me know what i missed or what has changed in the comments below please like and subscribe if you want to join my life as a special operations team and don't forget to forward this video to a friend who needs to see this life is a special operation are you ready for it [Applause] you

Channel: Life is a Special Operation

Views: 1,547,944

Keywords: strategy, leadership, mindset, fitness, Special, operations, special operations, special forces, elite, performance, forces, navy seal, army, navy, air, force, air force, marines, boot camp, training, how hard, learn, develop, confidence, PJ, raider, seal, green beret, TACP, JTAC, recon, reconnaissance, strategic, planning, jocko, extreme ownership, deadly skills, can’t hurt me, airborne, ranger, how hard is, airborne school, fort benning, air assault, air assault school, airborne shuffle

Id: J0DF-W_qlDI

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022