Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Matthew Hecht | A U.S. Army C-31A Troopship with the Golden Knights aerial demonstration team flies...... read more read more
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Your typical American family will often wake up, roll out of bed and share breakfast together before starting their day. Each member puts their clothes on one pant leg at a time. This family is no different in that sense.
This family is significantly different though. Later today, this family will be jumping out of a plane with hundreds of thousands of people watching their descent.
The Golden Knights are the U.S. Army’s official aerial demonstration team. They are currently in the middle of show season, which extends from late April into November.
There are four separate teams that make up the Golden Knights: The tandem team, competition team, gold team, and black team. Team members are together roughly 250 days out of the year.
“We are very tight-knit. Obviously, with all the high-flying maneuvers we do, it’s essential,” said Staff Sgt. Shelby Bixler, an airborne recruiter liaison with the black demonstration team.
Just like any other family, there are arguments, but not as often as one would expect.
“Inevitably somebody is going to butt heads, but the team’s selection process helps to make sure that doesn’t happen often,” said Sgt. 1st Class Joe Jones, member of the U.S. Army Golden Knights black demonstration team.
“We have tryouts every year, September and October, and the guys that are trying out, they don’t go home in the evenings; we have a barracks room at our headquarters that they stay at,” Jones said.
“We give them tasks to complete during the night before the next day’s training, and it’s impossible to complete everything, but it’s for a purpose. You quickly start to see where the attitudes are, and who the team players are. You can see the guys that are doing what they can to complete the tasks. You can also see the guys who are sneaking off trying to get to bed early; they’re not going to make it,” said Jones. “So when you’re asking, when we’re on the road do we have any problems? Really we don’t, because we already weeded the problem guys out.”
Not only do the team members have their Knights family, most of them also maintain a family outside of their day job. Several of the black demonstration team members are married with children.
“You can imagine, roughly 250 days on the road together, you’re with your teammates more than your own family,” said Pfc. Jason Wenger, airborne aircraft repairer.
“My wife is former military, so she is used to the travel, but if you’re newly-married, and your wife is not used to the time away, it takes some getting used to,” said Jones.
For some family members of the Knights, this is the only life they have lived.
“I’ve been part of the Golden Knights for 12 years; my son is 14 years old, so this is really all he knows. He knows daddy is home for two or three days, and then he’s on the road for a week,” said Jones.
Even though these highly-trained soldiers sacrifice their own time with family to serve in the Golden Knights, they serve to uphold the legacy of those who came before them.
As their creed states, “I volunteered to become an ambassador of my service and I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor, high standards, and esprit de corps of the United States Army Parachute Team. The memories, achievements and legacy of all my predecessors are my responsibility; I will not fail them.”
| Date Taken: | 08.14.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 08.14.2014 17:03 |
| Story ID: | 139368 |
| Location: | ATLANTIC CITY, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 200 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, US Army Golden Knights: A family of its own, by SSgt Shane S. Karp, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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