On Thursday, February 16.2017, my son graduated from the U.S. Army Airborne School at Ft. Benning. He earned his wings and is now a basically trained, five jump parachutist. Apparently, my son is insane. Why else would one jump out of a perfectly good plane? Certainly not for the extra pay each month.

This is what I thought about while my son was at Ft. Benning for Airborne training. Didn’t I just have a baby a few days ago? I thought he would be a writer. My husband thought he would be an investment banker. Why is that precious gift from God jumping out of a plane? The answer is that he is living his dream.

John is a Captain in the U. S. Army. He branched Logistics and is currently assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division (All-Americans), Ft. Bragg, NC. The military is the only career he has ever wanted and, of course, he wanted to be Airborne.

Wednesday morning, my husband and I drove the four hours from Knoxville, Tennessee to Ft. Benning which is about an hour West of Atlanta, Georgia. The weather was not good. It was very overcast and high winds. The Airborne training group at Ft. Benning maintains a Facebook page. This way families know when the Airborne candidates are jumping and the time for graduation after jump five. Mike Gotschall, one of the candidate’s dad, was keeping everyone up to date on the weather conditions. Still not looking good.