Before I start missing it, I'll blog about it now;
though I know I'll do it again when I ORD.
The intensity between the time we reach the airbase and step into the plane is indescribable. We suit up and go through the drills in our mind; most important of them all: the malfunction drill when your parachute fails and have to pull your reserve. Then as we see others board the plane, we imagine them landing safely and being free from these anxieties and this is the only time you wish you were in the 1st sortie.
Finally when the plane returns to pick you up, the anxiousness peaked.
But when you stand up to walk towards it, you give up. You accept the fate and you embrace it. This is the only time your mind will tell you all the good things about parachuting, convincing you to move forward.
At the final stage, when you are asked to prepare for action, stand up, hook up and when the first person "stand at the door!", you merely go through the process and follow through the actions. It's scary to be the first jumper, because you don't know when you'll jump. And after the first jumper goes, the rest is a rush, a blur. You will be out in no time.
And for us that had done quite some jumps before, we no longer go through the procedures of counting and checking; all we do is enjoy the free-fall and wait for the parachute to deploy (most of the time it does). Next, we look for our friends, call out their name and then look for the wind direction and choose a good patch of land (non-tarmac) to land. After that, as the ground draws towards you, you reach the most crucial part of the whole process: landing. This is where you really might get injured and the fear is real. But if using a parachute like the one I used for Thailand which is rather new, the landing will be non-technical.
And then it'll be the part we all dread:
Recovery and walking back to the RV.
By then, the realization of having a Thai-wing on your right chest sets in,
we walked back in jubilant.
