If anyone has a manifest for units that jumped I would greatly appreciate it. Judging by the rank of just E5 and having master jump wings I am inclined to think he served as a jumpmaster. It would be very easy to narrow down his name.
If anyone has a manifest for units that jumped I would greatly appreciate it. Judging by the rank of just E5 and having master jump wings I am inclined to think he served as a jumpmaster. It would be very easy to narrow down his name.
Greetings,
I was a primary jumpmaster for aircraft #8 of a total of thirteen aircraft going into Rio Hato. That said, this individual, likely jumped into Torrijos Tocumen (the only location the 82nd Jumped & in daylight) with follow-on forces while attached to/part of the 82nd ABN DIV. While it is possible he was a jumpmaster (never say never) it is very unlikely as an attachment (no engineer units jumped pure) he would have been put in a jumpmaster's position for the operation. There would have been plenty of well qualified jumpmasters from the 82nd to utilize and quite odd to put an attached Engineer in that position for a combat parachute assault. Additionally, and most likely, he may have been a lower rank than SGT/E-5 for the actual jump as no one (including myself) wore a mustard stain until well after the operation was complete and were back stateside with paper orders to do so. Not trying to poo poo the uniform, just an observation from someone who was there at the time.
I would surmise, the uniform's original owner would be a Soldier in an 82nd ABN DIV's engineer unit who subsequently (i.e. after the jump into Panama) was promoted after Operation Just Cause. Additionally, it's odd/rare to view a Sergeant/E-5 with master parachutist's wings as well. I was awarded master wings as a SGT/E-5 but, only because I went to the military free fall course (HALO School) in addition to attending the jumpmaster's course as a SPC-4 (BTW, MFF's Jumps counted towards static line Jumpmaster's jumps). This uniform's owner must have been chasing jumps while on Ft. Bragg and getting onto every jump he could manage (like on weekends & such) in order to get 65 (minimum) to become a master parachutist as a SGT/E-5. Yes, it happened, but a quite rare accomplishment at that rank. In five days, we'll be coming up on the thirty years' anniversary of this operation, time goes by so darned fast. Thoughts complete.
Best,
V/r Lance
Shouldn’t this whole thread be in the post-war section?
Similar Threads
Posting Permissions
.
Bookmarks