Chapter 11: The Guide and the AAR

I have done very dangerous things in the military. I have placed my life and the lives of my men in danger. I could do these things, and do them with the confidence that we would emerge unscathed, because I had learned from generations of soldiers who had gone before me. Their lessons gained through blood, sweat, tears, and death were passed down to me so I wouldn’t have to learn them in the same painful ways. 

Nothing is done in the military without an After Action Review (AAR). Training exercises, combat operations are all picked apart in an effort to capture the things done right (so they can be shared and repeated) and the things that didn’t work (so they can be shared and avoided). The Army even has a command at Fort Leavenworth called The Center for Army Lessons Learned—yet the concept of an AAR relating to transition is nowhere to be found in any of the transition programs offered. Every person leaving active duty gets to learn the same lessons without the benefit of the experiences of thousands of other veterans just like them.

One of the worst situations to be caught in is an ambush. The enemy has carefully selected a kill zone, ensured his deadliest weapons are situated to provide devastating fire throughout the kill zone, and waited patiently for the unsuspecting prey to walk into certain death.

To freeze or to try and take cover in a kill zone is certain death. The only chance for survival is to charge headlong, recklessly straight into the oncoming fire. It’s not a good chance, but it’s a chance.

How do you suppose we know this is a chance?

It’s because someone did it, survived, and shared the story so others could benefit from the knowledge. Now every soldier learns “react to ambush” as a basic battle drill, and units constantly rehearse their response.

Another dangerous activity soldiers do is jump out of aircraft in flight. Before every jump, US Army regulations require all the soldiers jumping to participate in Sustained Airborne Training, or SAT for short. During SAT, the jumpmasters (soldiers who have advanced paratrooper training and are charged with ensuring that the jumpers safely exit the aircraft and are prepared for any contingency that might arise) march the jumpers to an open field and run them through contingency drills. Such contingencies include the possibility of landing in a tree, in water, on powerlines, having a canopy that fails to deploy, or even landing on another jumper’s parachute.

The jumpers stand in extended formation on an open field and the jumpmasters rehearse the jump, going through all the jump commands and the jumpers mimic the required actions, all of which were drilled into the soldier during Basic Airborne Training at Fort Benning.

“Jumpers hit it!” All jumpers hop a few inches in the air and lock their bodies tight, feet and knees together, arms locked in front, down to the sides at elbows bent, forearms pointing straight forward. To the observer, it looks like everyone is hunching over, holding a small precious box. Everyone chants in unison, “One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand.” On the count of four, one should feel the opening shock. Sometimes the jumpmaster yells, “Five thousand, six thousand!” and the jumpers respond by pretending to deploy reserves. Rangers jump at 800 feet above ground level, and usually at night. It takes about eight seconds for 200 pounds to fall 800 feet, so there is zero room for error.

On the command, “Check canopy,” jumpers stand erect and extend their arms up, grasping the risers to the invisible parachute, to ensure there is no malfunction, and the jumpmasters call out potential malfunctions.

“Trees!” Jumpers fold their arms over their faces, peering beneath their armpits to prevent tree branches from poking eyes.

“Power line!” Jumpers pretend rocking the parachute risers back and forth, to increase the possibility of slipping through the power lines rather than getting snagged and possibly electrocuted.

“Landing on another jumper’s canopy!” A hundred jumpers jog in place, feeling slightly ridiculous pretending to run off another jumper’s chute. The purpose of these drills is to cement into the mind the actions you must take to increase your odds of survival should the worst occur, and these drills work.

In 1991 the Ranger Regiment conducted a change of command. Occurring roughly every two years, the Regiment change of command caps a week of “Ranger-ific” events and competitions. Called Ranger Rendezvous, Ranger veterans from around the world return to Fort Benning to socialize, tell stories, and reconnect with the experience of being an active duty Ranger. All the Regiment’s subordinate units (that are not deployed) conduct a rare daylight parachute assault. Timed to the exact second, aircraft from the east and west coasts converge over Fryar Drop Zone at Fort Benning. Few units in the United States military are capable of conducting such an intricate and massive combat insertion, and the Regiment uses the change of command as a means of ensuring this proficiency stays at a high level. Mass-tac is short for mass tactical—“mass” meaning a lot of jumpers in the air, and “tactical” meaning they bring all their combat gear with them. The Regiment had demonstrated the lethal effectiveness of this proficiency two years earlier when it had jumped into history during Operation Just Cause in Panama, conducting simultaneous parachute assaults onto Torrijos/Tocumen International Airport and Rio Hato Airfield. The Rangers captured over a thousand enemy prisoners of war and nearly 20,000 weapons.

Following the Regimental mass-tac, Rangers assemble and spend the week competing in athletic and shooting competitions culminating in transfer of the Regiment’s colors from the outgoing to the incoming commander.

As I exited a C141 jet over Fryar, everything seemed normal. On a mass-tac, jumpers use a non-steerable parachute to minimize the risk of mid-air collisions. Jumpers are connected to a steel cable inside the aircraft by a static line. On the command “Go!” the line of jumpers (called a stick) walks rapidly towards the doors at the rear of the plane, attempting to keep about a one-second interval behind the jumper ahead. The jumpmasters (two—one at each door) control the flow so that ideally jumpers exit alternatingly, first the right, then the left door at half second intervals. Depending on number of jumpers and length of the drop zone, the jumpers might surge towards the door, as no one wants to miss the drop zone and end up hanging from a tree.

Exiting a jet is different than exiting a propeller driven plane. One must grab the doors of a prop plane and jump up and out to clear the side of the plane. On a jet, however, one just steps out and, if done correctly, the slip-stream creates a gentle slide as the static line unfurls from the parachute worn on jumper's back. Still connected to the plane, the jumper is horizontal to the ground until the opening shock of the canopy, when the force swings the jumper to the other horizontal, then back until the jumper is suspended under canopy, descending to the ground. I have many memorable pictures in my mind of the belly of the plane, suspended in time and space, floating away from me as my chute deploys.

On this day, however, before I could enjoy the view, I landed flat on my back on a parachute.

When I was at the 1st Ranger Battalion, there was a plaque inside the front door of the battalion headquarters. It honored and memorialized Rangers killed in training. With one exception, all the fatalities to this date were listed in pairs—a dozen Rangers killed when their parachutes became entangled. Military parachutes are designed to support the load of one paratrooper with equipment. When two jumpers become entangled, one of the parachutes will collapse leaving the other overloaded and both parachutists will plummet to certain injury and possible death.

As I sat up on this big green nylon canopy, I noticed that there was a pool of green parachute cord (suspension lines connecting my risers to the parachute) lying on my lap. It looked like someone had dumped a five-gallon bucket of green spaghetti noodles on me. Then I saw that my parachute was sliding off the side of the canopy on which I sat, much like a silk sheet would slowly slip off of a bed. Reaching with my left hand, I grabbed as many of the suspension lines as I could and flung them to my left, then grabbed the rest with my right hand and flung them to the right, and rose to my feet. The sensation was like being in a kid’s moon walk, the air below creating enough pressure on the canopy that I could stand. Without thinking, I ran to the spot where my canopy had now disappeared over the side. I jumped, passed my parachute in the air, it caught air and re-inflated, and I pulled hard on a riser, spilling air from the canopy so I would move away from the other jumper but increasing my already too-fast rate of descent.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw the other jumper, but all I remember are eyes so wide open they looked like comic bulging eyes. Looking towards the ground, I saw a pile of sand, and I pulled hard on the riser, willing myself into the sand. I hit so hard it knocked the air out of me—but thankfully it was sand. Had I hit on harder ground I know I would have broken something. The adrenaline hit me and I rolled over, pushing myself up as I gagged and wretched. A one-star general I didn’t recognize, who must have jumped on the pass before me, jogged by with his gear, headed for the assembly area. He looked at me and said something like “Hooah! Good training!” and kept on going.

“Thanks for the help, sir—I’m okay.”

I survived that near-catastrophe because it had been drilled into my head through dozens of SAT sessions. I had no time to think about what to do; I barely had time to react as it was. Once the jumper below me touched the ground, the force holding the air pressure in the parachute would have been gone. The canopy would have instantly collapsed, and I would have fallen more than thirty feet and perhaps landing atop the other jumper.

The point of this story is that when you are in the military, you have access to a near-limitless knowledge base of lessons learned. Every operation I participated in, concluded with an After Action Review, or AAR. The AAR collected at a minimum three positives and three things to improve for each critical area of the event.

This excerpt is from Common Sense Transition, Chapter 11: “The Guide and the AAR.” 

Karl Monger is a retired U.S. Army Ranger veteran, author of Common Sense Transition, and the founder and Executive Director of GallantFew, Inc., a 501(c)3 formed in 2010 and is dedicated to helping veterans transition to civilian lives full of purpose and hope.

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