How the Creation of Airborne Soldiers, Change the Us Military Special Forces

The first thing that comes to mind about Airborne soldiers is that they are crazy to jump out of planes. This particular narrative, I will concentrating on of the more prestigious soldiers our military has to offer - the Airborne Soldier (paratrooper). The whole purpose of being a qualified airborne soldier, is that you jump out of a plane with a parachute, and land behind enemy lines to out flank them. When it comes to the Armed Forces of the United States, all soldiers from different branches come together and represent our country. Although soldiers come in all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, religious beliefs, being able to wear the Airborne patch on one's shoulder, or being able to wear the medal on one's chest is something not everybody can accomplish. Takes a great deal of commitment and self courage. Even though the basic idea to one becoming airborne qualified seems easy, there are actually a lot of screenings done to a soldier before he can even be considered to go airborne school. For example, if you are enrolled in the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) you must be a contracted cadet, meaning that you have fully committed to 4 years of service to the military. Another thing is that you must have a certain physical fitness test score, and have a good standing GPA. While most citizens of the United States thinks of a soldier and being not educated, and is just a war junkie, we must try to inform them that what these people are doing is what helps keep this nation great. Most officers today have a Bachelors Degree, and every soldier is trained proficiently in correspondence to their profession. If these people don't volunteer to be in the military who will guard our nation? That is why when people call soldiers war junkies, it becomes a sensitive topic. If no volunteer soldiers were present, the government would have to re-instate the draft, which in turn would cause more pandemonium in our society. The creation of the Airborne soldier, plays a huge role in our military tactics and strategy. Without, it would eliminate an form of element of surprise to the enemy. It would make our strategies very easy to predict. Having the capability to jump behind enemy lines, and jumping right into the heart of the war, puts the enemy at their heels. Since, then airborne soldiers have also participated in special operations, where several soldiers were able to land behind enemy lines undetected. Overall the creation of the airborne plays a huge role in our tactics, and it will only become more sophist aced and technological advanced.

"The word parachute comes from the words parasol ( an umbrella) and chute ( to fall)" (Kennedy). Primarily the word paratrooper comes from the two words, parachute and trooper; a paratrooper is an infantry soldier who jumps into battle from a flying aircraft. The whole idea of jumping into combat from a plane came from Colonel Billy Mitchell. He was a commander of the US aviation forces in France during the first world war. The military randomly chose the 1st infantry division to be trained to parachute from heavy bombers. However, they were not able to deploy the paratroopers in the spring of 1919 because the war had already been won (History). It wasn't till twenty years from then that the Army began to think about the proposal Col. Mitchell came up with. The production and training of Americas Airborne was a very slow process in the years preceding the second World War. It was mainly because of all the internal policies between the different services and also between the units. The infantry gained control of all airborne operations in 1939 after a conference containing all there of the interested branches; The Air Corps, the Corps of Engineers, and the Infantry (History). The very first platoon to be considered an airborne, was on July 1, 1940 at Fort Benning, GA. Back then, Fort Benning was considered the home of infantry school. The soldiers that made up this platoon were from the 29th infantry regiment, and out of the 200 who volunteered, and only 48 of them were finally selected. On the 16th of September the test platoon was rapidly growing and was now 501st Parachute Battalion. Since this rapid expansion of soldiers coming in, the Army got more funds to build new facilities and safer Drop Zones. As soon as the number of volunteers increased to a size that the Army deemed suitable, they had formed five US Airborne Divisions; the11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd and 101st (Airborne).

America decided to use their airborne soldiers in World War II,. "The first major paratroop dropped occurred during Operation Torch, in North Africa. The 509th Infantry Battalion flew over 1500 miles from Britain, over Span, intending to drop near Oran and capture two airfields. The drop was fiasco. The navigation and communications problems scattered the forces from Gibraltar to Tunisia. The 509th wasn't a factor in the initial invasion" (Airborne). During World War II, there were 10 Airborne operations, all involving different divisions. During this time, two divisions started to stand out from the rest; the 82nd and the 101st. It was during Operation Overlord, otherwise known was D-Day both the 82nd and the 101st dropped behind enemy lines, in bad weather and was scattered throughout France. Both divisions suffered heavy casualties, but managed to complete their mission. The cleanest drop of the whole war was during Operation Market Garden. It involved over 35,000 troops about 100 miles behind German front lines. Their intent was to capture vital bridges to cut off German re-supply routes. It was here that both divisions suffered the most casualties. The Battle of the Bulge that the 101st division held the lines despite heavy enemy artillery fire, was even considered one the bloodiest battles during the whole war.

The airborne division after the second World War seemed to have been forgotten. The US deployed the paratroopers in Korea. It wasn't till the Vietnam War that the airborne divisions saw action again. During this era, the idea of dropping soldiers in and out of battle via a helicopter came into action. They would name this as Air Mobile or Air Assault. They came up with this idea because of the jungle terrain they faced in Vietnam. The military despised having them parachute down because they feared of soldiers getting there chutes caught in the treetops.

Since the use of helicopters have been popularized, have dwindles in numbers in recent years. This change has caused the Army to name the 82nd division the US's only Airborne Division, it is also considered the largest formation of paratroopers in the world (Airborne). Meanwhile the 101st Airborne Division, has changed and is now the US's only air assault division. Air Assault troops drop into battle via helicopter by ropes and rappel

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