This morning, the kids and I were able to go out to the drop zone (10 minutes from the house...just on the other side of base) and watch Edward jump with the instructors. To date, he has 17 jumps and will join the course next week as they begin the "grouping" phase. That is when they will jump out of the plane in groups, as you would in combat. Until now, he's come out of the airplane one at a time. Obviously, grouping is much more dangerous, as the potential to crash into each other is much higher. They will do that for a couple of days, and then he'll do the night jumping and night jumping with oxygen (meaning, they will jump from extremely high altitudes). He'll finish his HALO qualification on Dec. 18 with graduation early that morning. Then, he'll get his HALO wings and shortly after, he'll start getting HALO pay :) After that, he'll be fully qualified to go into these crazy combat missions you can't even imagine. Luckily, as a doc, he shouldn't have to do this, but especially in the Army, never say never.
Today was a perfect morning for jumping. It was a little hazy, but otherwise, a great Arizona morning. Temps right now are around 58 in the early AM, reaching 90 by mid afternoon. And, just to make a point, it's actually hotter here than in Death Valley, CA, and we know because Edward's sister is living there right now.
To reiterate, it's so dangerous out here for this. Just yesterday, Edward spent most of the day at the local ER with one of his soldiers. As the guy was jumping, another jumper crashed into him after they had deployed their parachutes. The crasher's parachute bounced off of the crashee's parachute. The crasher landed unharmed, but the crashee was unconscious when he landed. Basically, around 25 feet off the ground or so, his parachute sort of collapsed, and he fell the rest of the way to the ground with no parachute...enter doc. This is why Edward sits on the drop zone with the guys everyday. He had to stabilize the guy, start IV and drugs, put him in a neckbrace/backboard and transport him via their ambulance the 50 minutes (yes, we're that far out of town) to the ER. The guy is a mess with broken everything, but he's alive. Please pray this soldier makes a full recovery, can endure the six hour flight back home to his family sometime soon, and can return to the job he loves.
Here are today's pictures:
Yes, that's Edward, and I'm sure of it. Since he's jumping with the instructors, they all have blue parachutes, and he has a gray one.
Still floating down
Getting closer...he turned, so now I'm looking into the sun.
I tried to move this picture, but blogger wouldn't cooperate. Here, he's landing.
Almost on the ground...one of the instructors in the foreground.
There goes their ride.
On the ground with parachute in hand
Of all the pictures I've taken of Edward, I really like this one. Maybe I like it so much because it's really Edward...Army doctor/daredevil. The flight suit he's wearing is worn anytime they jump. Obviously, it is really hot on them once they hit the ground. They wear their uniform t-shirt and shorts underneath (similar to the PT's, but it's a special HALO School uniform).
The kids quickly lost interest and decided playing in the sand was more fun. Luke is literally handing me a grain of sand.
Madison and her sand obsession
The two of them started to wander off until I told them to watch out for the snakes and spiders. They froze in their tracks and turned around.
Blogger wasn't cooperating again...the C-130 taking off at the airstrip down the strip with another load of jumpers. Edward's been jumping out of a smaller plane because this one is jumping the basic course, the course he'll join up with for the grouping.
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