Read this amazing stuff. Thanks to the on line edition of the Stars and Stripes:
"A fearful man is likely to remain that way
no matter what kind of training he undergoes.
During one experiment, completely untrained
airborne candidates were told to jump off a
thirty-four-foot tower. They jumped in a harness
that allowed them to fall about twelve feet
and then ride a 400-foot cable to the ground.
As easy as it sounds, more than half of a group
of qualified paratroopers said that jumping off
the tower was more frightening than jumping out
of a real airplane. The military tested roughly
thirteen hundred candidates on the tower and then
tracked their success through airborne school.
They found that the men who were 'slow' to jump
off the tower were more than twice as likely to
fail out of the program as 'fast' jumpers, and
those who refused to jump at all were almost
guaranteed to fail."
no matter what kind of training he undergoes.
During one experiment, completely untrained
airborne candidates were told to jump off a
thirty-four-foot tower. They jumped in a harness
that allowed them to fall about twelve feet
and then ride a 400-foot cable to the ground.
As easy as it sounds, more than half of a group
of qualified paratroopers said that jumping off
the tower was more frightening than jumping out
of a real airplane. The military tested roughly
thirteen hundred candidates on the tower and then
tracked their success through airborne school.
They found that the men who were 'slow' to jump
off the tower were more than twice as likely to
fail out of the program as 'fast' jumpers, and
those who refused to jump at all were almost
guaranteed to fail."
Exactly! Training to be a parachutist is a filter mechanism and should be understood to be such. Those soldiers, NOT fearful as the others, will pass through the filter and do in a demonstrable way. The soldier MORE fearful [not necessarily cowardly but more fearful] will either fail or in a demonstrable manner exhibit more difficulty!!
The famous First Special Service Force [FSSF] - - "The Devil's Brigade" under went three days total of parachute training. Passing the "course" being obligatory. ONE day of ground work, learning how to exit the airplane, ONE day of jumping off the back of a 2 1/2 truck moving at eighteen miles per hour [simulating the landing of a parachutist, the impact!], and ONE day of doing an actual jump. And that was that! A three day "course" encapsulating what normally takes THREE WEEKS!! The commander of the FSSF was looking for something, the brave and resolute soldier, a natural, able to "do". Parachute training again a filter mechanism to separate the wheat from the chaff!
coolbert.
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