Chapter 9 - THE ASSEMBLY ON THE DROP ZONE
The interior of the C-17 smelled of hydraulic fluid, stale chewing tobacco, and forty-two paratroopers sweating through their combat kit in sixty-percent humidity.
The red jump light was on over the paratroop door.
*CLANK.*
The jumpmaster’s voice cut through the roar of the four Pratt & Whitney engines like an entrenching tool through sod: “TEN MINUTES!”
We stood up. The sixty pounds of T-11 parachute and reserve harness pressed down into my clavicles, familiar and cold. My hands moved down my chest in the six-point check: static line hooked, safety pin secure, chest strap tight, leg straps clear of the holster, reserve handle accessible, knife tucked into the boot lace.
Behind me was Sergeant Miller. Ahead of me was Captain Whitaker.
“HOW’S THE CHEVY CHASE CONTINGENT TODAY, SERGEANT?” Whitaker roared over the engine noise, his face black with camouflage grease, his teeth white in the green glow of the jump light.
“THEY’RE IN THE REAR WITH THE GEAR, SIR!” I shouted back.
The squad let out a short, collective bark—a rhythmic, dog-like growl that shook the aluminum floorplates under our boots.
These were the men Reid Archer called low-class. Men from the red-clay hollows of West Virginia, the trailer parks of southern Ohio, and the timber counties of southside Virginia. Men who didn't have trusts in the Caymans or seats on the board of the National Symphony.
Men who would pick you up when your harness dragged you through forty yards of blackberry briars and carry your pack until your knee popped back into the socket.
*BEEP.*
The jump light turned from red to green.
The hydraulic door groaned, swung open, and the world outside was three thousand feet of empty blue North Carolina morning, smelling of wet longleaf pines and red dirt that had been baking in the sun since dawn.
“STAND IN THE DOOR!”
Whitaker went first. A dark shape against the sky, falling away into the prop-wash like a stone dropped into a millpond.
Then Miller.
Then me.
I hit the slipstream.
The air didn't hit me like a wall; it took me like a fist. The twenty-knot blast tore the breath out of my mouth, whipped my helmet strap against my cheek, and then—
*THUMP.*
The risers snatched me upright. The harness bit deep into my groin and shoulders, checking the fall with that sudden, violent grace that makes your spine pop from your tailbone to your ears.
The canopy was full. A massive, olive-green mushroom of ripstop nylon, sixty feet across, floating in the quiet between the engine roar and the ground.
Below me was Sicily Drop Zone.
A two-mile stretch of sand, scrub oak, and pine seedlings, scarred by eighty years of boot heels and heavy equipment drops.
Parked on the dirt access road at the edge of the woodline was a single, long-bed Ford F-250, its grey primer hood catching the sun.
Standing next to the truck were two men.
One was broad, wearing a black work shirt and jeans, his arm resting on the open window frame. Miles.
The other was tall, thin, wearing an old tweed jacket with leather elbow patches that had seen thirty years of rain, holding a pair of field glasses to his eyes. Jonah.
May you like
I grabbed the steering toggles, pulled down hard on the right riser, and felt the canopy slip into the wind, carrying me down toward the red dirt, toward the pines, toward the only family that had ever given a damn about the landing.
---