less the other way around. The other guys thought that was pretty great. If they found out you had Indian blood, well, you were made first scout. I was a good shot, too, on the rifle range, so I was popular with the infield.
After we finished basic training they put us in a big hall and asked where we wanted to go from there. Most of us had taken infantry basic. Somebody said something about a new outfit being formed, the paratroopers, where you jumped out of airplanes. I remember a couple of guys saying, “Well, who in the heck would want to do something like that?” Then another guy says, “Well, it pays fifty bucks a month extra.” So about five of our hands went up. I did it for the fifty bucks a month [laughs]. That was a lot of money in those days.
For parachute training we were sent to Fort Benning, Georgia. I think it took five weeks. Training at Benning was harder than the infantry training. First week was strictly running, tumbling, climbing ropes, doing push-ups eight to ten hours a day all day long. You never walked anywhere, you ran, all in the Georgia heat. The heat was miserable. I was in shape, so the training never bothered me, but a lot of guys washed out.
When the time came for my first jump, I just went out the door. When the chute opened, I thought, Hey, this is fun. You’re scared the first four or five jumps, but I never had any problems jumping.
From Georgia I went to a repo depo [replacement depot]. Whenever somebody was short of people they’d call in and you’d go from there. So I joined the 506th E Company in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after they had finished jump school.
We were outsiders in E Company. They had all been together for over a year and knew each other really well. Some would talk to you, some wouldn’t. They were looking at us seeing if we were going to last. You were an outsider until you got in combat; then things changed. I came in with a bunch of guys with the last name M—Mellett, McMahon, Mayer. I don’t remember them all. Some of them didn’t last too long.
Clancy Lyall
After I enlisted I went to basic training at Camp Blanding in Florida. At Blanding the mosquitoes were bigger than goddamn B-17s. We did a lot of work in the swamps there, escape, evasion, and survival training. It was okay. I already knew how to eat the animals found in a swamp and navigate at night—I had learned that back in Louisiana.
Then I went over to Fort Benning, Georgia, for airborne training—the frying pan area, they called it. It was across the river from the main post. The first three or four weeks of training there were pretty horrific. The easiest jump I ever made was my first because I didn’t know what I was in for. The hardest was your second—then I wondered what the hell I was doing up there.
It helped to have a lot of preparation for the first jump. We learned how to exit the door, how to land, how to guide our chutes. To train, we jumped off thirty-four-foot towers. But it was a little different when we got up about nine hundred feet in a damn C-47. Then it was shake, rattle, and roll. I couldn’t look down or I’d never jump. When I looked down I saw ants, and that was a shock. So I always looked straight ahead. One time I looked down just as I was jumping and damn near couldn’t jump. I had to haul myself out the door.
In those days the chutes opened up and you felt like a tassel on a whip. Bang! It didn’t break your back but it damn sure pulled you around. When you’re jumping out of an airplane, you’re never not afraid. I don’t care who says they’re not. You always have that little fear that says your chute won’t open. But after a while you settle in and it all becomes second nature.
On a few jumps I experienced what they call a Mae West. That’s where your suspension lines go over the parachute and your parachute looks like two bosoms. It was my fault. When I jumped I twisted, and the lines went that way. I was always able to shake off the Mae
After we finished basic training they put us in a big hall and asked where we wanted to go from there. Most of us had taken infantry basic. Somebody said something about a new outfit being formed, the paratroopers, where you jumped out of airplanes. I remember a couple of guys saying, “Well, who in the heck would want to do something like that?” Then another guy says, “Well, it pays fifty bucks a month extra.” So about five of our hands went up. I did it for the fifty bucks a month [laughs]. That was a lot of money in those days.
For parachute training we were sent to Fort Benning, Georgia. I think it took five weeks. Training at Benning was harder than the infantry training. First week was strictly running, tumbling, climbing ropes, doing push-ups eight to ten hours a day all day long. You never walked anywhere, you ran, all in the Georgia heat. The heat was miserable. I was in shape, so the training never bothered me, but a lot of guys washed out.
When the time came for my first jump, I just went out the door. When the chute opened, I thought, Hey, this is fun. You’re scared the first four or five jumps, but I never had any problems jumping.
From Georgia I went to a repo depo [replacement depot]. Whenever somebody was short of people they’d call in and you’d go from there. So I joined the 506th E Company in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after they had finished jump school.
We were outsiders in E Company. They had all been together for over a year and knew each other really well. Some would talk to you, some wouldn’t. They were looking at us seeing if we were going to last. You were an outsider until you got in combat; then things changed. I came in with a bunch of guys with the last name M—Mellett, McMahon, Mayer. I don’t remember them all. Some of them didn’t last too long.
Clancy Lyall
After I enlisted I went to basic training at Camp Blanding in Florida. At Blanding the mosquitoes were bigger than goddamn B-17s. We did a lot of work in the swamps there, escape, evasion, and survival training. It was okay. I already knew how to eat the animals found in a swamp and navigate at night—I had learned that back in Louisiana.
Then I went over to Fort Benning, Georgia, for airborne training—the frying pan area, they called it. It was across the river from the main post. The first three or four weeks of training there were pretty horrific. The easiest jump I ever made was my first because I didn’t know what I was in for. The hardest was your second—then I wondered what the hell I was doing up there.
It helped to have a lot of preparation for the first jump. We learned how to exit the door, how to land, how to guide our chutes. To train, we jumped off thirty-four-foot towers. But it was a little different when we got up about nine hundred feet in a damn C-47. Then it was shake, rattle, and roll. I couldn’t look down or I’d never jump. When I looked down I saw ants, and that was a shock. So I always looked straight ahead. One time I looked down just as I was jumping and damn near couldn’t jump. I had to haul myself out the door.
In those days the chutes opened up and you felt like a tassel on a whip. Bang! It didn’t break your back but it damn sure pulled you around. When you’re jumping out of an airplane, you’re never not afraid. I don’t care who says they’re not. You always have that little fear that says your chute won’t open. But after a while you settle in and it all becomes second nature.
On a few jumps I experienced what they call a Mae West. That’s where your suspension lines go over the parachute and your parachute looks like two bosoms. It was my fault. When I jumped I twisted, and the lines went that way. I was always able to shake off the Mae
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