Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL Read Free Page B

was descending rapidly. Past the open tail ramp, through sheets of driving rain, I could see car headlights on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel a mile below. It was raining hard, and lightning zigzagged through the cloud deck. The bay was rough, the clouds were descending, and the storm was on us fully. I could see raindrops frozen in the strobing of the airliner’s anticollision lights. The 727 pulled a broad, lazy turn over the Chesapeake and entered the landing pattern for Norfolk International.
    The purpose of tonight’s exercise was to see if a stick of jumpers would show up on airport approach radar. After orbiting over SEAL DZ, Assailant 26 had requested a touch-and-go at Norfolk International. The plan was for Assailant to put flaps and landing gear down and enter the pattern. Our landing zone was maybe two and half miles from the airport’s tower, between the Chesapeake shore and the runways. As the airliner swooped for a landing, my element would jump when the soccer field came into sight.
    We would be leaving the airplane at seven hundred feet, pretty low for a free-fall drop. After we exited the aircraft, the tail ramp would be winched shut. Assailant 26 would then execute a touch-and-go, divert, and land at the nearby naval air station at Oceana, Virginia. That was the plan, anyway. Moments from now, for me, that plan would completely go to hell.
    The combat controller held up his right hand, index finger and thumb half an inch apart. I passed the signal to Hoser: thirty seconds to drop. I checked my altimeter: We were passing through a thousand feet. The combat controller slapped me on the leg. I yelled, “GO! GO! GO!” into my radio headset. At the bottom of the ramp, Hoser let go of the railing and was instantly sucked off the stairs. I watched as he disappeared into the wall of blinking raindrops. The rest of the jumpers clattered down the stairs and dived into black. I was the last man to leave the airplane. Plunging off, I could feel the hot blast of the engines and smell the acrid scent of burning jet fuel.
    As my body slammed into the slipstream, I arched my back. The exit from an airliner is not unlike bodysurfing a gigantic wave. The drop feels the same, and you have to arch your back hard so you don’t somersault. I waited three seconds, my fingers hooked the rip cord, and I pulled. I felt the cable whip through its channels and open the parachute container on my back. The spring-loaded pilot chute fired, and my main parachute and deployment bag shot skyward. I braced for opening shock, preparing my body for deceleration from 120 miles an hour to almost zero. I took a deep breath and held it.
    But my parachute did not open. Virginia was still coming at me fast. I had maybe ten seconds to live.
    I’ve heard it said that in times of peril, victims flash back on their entire lives. I have been in bad places many times, in mortal, violent moments when I did not really know if I would live or die, but a flashback has never happened to me. Maybe I’m not sufficiently contemplative. Maybe I’ve never considered myself a victim. All I knew was that I was hurtling toward earth, and I was going to die if I didn’t solve a mystery. The mystery involving my main canopy. Why hadn’t it opened?
    Actually, “why” didn’t matter. What mattered now was getting a reserve chute deployed. I did not flash back over my life, but I did go to adrenaline world. This has happened to me almost every time I have faced imminent destruction. The planet seems to stop. Everything slows and is silent. I no longer heard the roar of the jet. I did not hear the rush of the wind past my helmet. I no longer felt the raindrops slamming like BBs into my face. The world was in slow mo. The only problem was, in about five seconds I would auger into the planet at 176 feet per second.
    On the stairs of the airplane, my altimeter had read 750 feet. That was almost four seconds ago. I estimated I was falling through 500 feet now,