See How The Army Airborne Rangers Train For All Conditions, All Over The World
A little while back I wrote an article for the Veterans Site about the Spartan Brigade, a new Airborne Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division that was recently formed for the express purpose of fighting in the Arctic. They are based out of Ft. Richardson, Alaska. This video is related to that training.
The video is of an Arctic Drop training exercise. It shows a drop that involved both heavy equipment and troops training for drops into an imagined war zone in the Arctic. There is no dialogue, no verbal descriptions, just the images, but they are impressive enough to give you a sense of what is involved.
The first part of the short video shows the heavy equipment drops. You see the drogue chute released. It’s designed to deployed as a pilot parachute to pull the heavy equipment out of the cargo hold and then to deploy the much larger chutes needed to support the heavy equipment. You’ll see how it works to pull the heavy equipment out of the cargo hold here. The technology is simple enough, but the reality of those heavy loads being pulled out of the cargo hold into the thin air, then “floating” those heavy, but ultimately important pieces of equipment to the ground, under silk, in a way that they aren’t destroyed on impact is truly impressive.
The latter part of the video shows the troops in their arctic gear, with their chutes and their back packs suspended before them and between their legs as they wait for the orders to prepare to jump. The video focuses in on their gear, etc., but it is when it focuses on the individual faces that you get a sense of what the thought of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane looks like. It seems, and it is crazy, but they do it without hesitation. Those who have trained for this and who have done it many times, know how crazy it is, yet also how exhilarating it is too. Nothing like it.
This training video and the article I wrote earlier on the “Spartan Brigade” are examples of the preparedness and diversity of our military’s capabilities. It is hoped that this training will never have to be deployed in a real war, but being prepared is for all possibilities is the best form of defense.
Enjoy this short video from the comfort of your home, and thank these young men and women for their willingness to serve the principles and ideal of freedom that are found in our Constitution. Hooah!
