FORT BRAGG, N.C. - U.S. Soldiers and jumpmasters from allied nations practiced airborne procedures on the ground on Dec. 3, 2015, here in preparation for the 18th Annual Randy Oler Memorial Operation Toy Drop. The event was hosted by U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) along with the Army Reserve.
Operation Toy Drop is a large combined airborne operation and collective training exercise, with seven partner-nation paratroopers participating this year. The seven nations included Canada, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Latvia and the Netherlands.
Thursday marked the first day foreign jumpmasters practice airborne operations with U.S. Soldiers and each group trained two times with their foreign jumpmasters. Airborne operations were practiced in the training facility at Pope Field, using equipment that simulated the inside of a plane.
“Here we go through procedures for the static line jump and procedures for the C-17,” said Sgt. Juri Daskevics, assigned to the Latvian Army Special Operations. “It’s a good experience to work with the other countries to learn their procedure.”
Daskevics said the procedures, especially the American procedures, are not hard to learn because he has worked with American Soldiers in Latvia and has jumped with them from the C-130. He also said there is no big difference between the C-17 and C-130, but the C-17 can hold more Soldiers.
“It is interesting to me to work with different aircraft because in my country we don’t have so many,” he said.
In addition to aircraft familiarization, he looked forward to learning and jumping with different countries. He already has jump wings from the U.S., Germany, Brazil, and Poland and enjoyed learning their procedures.
“They show us what they know, we show them what we know, we cooperate with each other,” said Daskevics about the multinational training.
“When we have a common jump with Americans, I teach them to my soldiers and we go through these procedures so when we work with Americans it’s easier for them to understand what they say and understand what we need to do.”
During Operation Toy Drop, Daskevics is not one of the jumpmaster for this operation but has an equally important role in the event.
“I will be on the ground to present Latvian parachute wings to the Soldiers,” he said.
In preparation for the pinning ceremony, Daskevics worked on a speech. Latvian jumpmasters also planned on attending a special dinner with commanders after the completion of training for the day.
Although the continuous training before Operation Toy Drop hadn’t allotted Daskevics a lot of free time, he would not change anything.
“I like my job, I am a parachute instructor. I like to jump; I like to work with soldiers and to go through these procedures. “
| Date Taken: |
12.03.2015 |
| Date Posted: |
12.08.2015 14:15 |
| Story ID: |
183847 |
| Location: |
FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: |
35 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, Jumping into action, by SGT Nicole Paese, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
Subscribe
