Is the airborne concept outdated?

The Army can survive without Airborne Soldiers but will die without Paratroopers!

An Airborne Soldier is one who is school qualified but never willing to take it to the next level, their Wings are nothing but bling on their uniforms.

However, a Paratrooper is one willing to Jump behind enemy lines knowing that reenforcement or re-supply may never occur. The Rifleman Paratrooper knows that in a moments notice he may become the CO and must carry on the mission!

Paratroopers are the soldiers the Army depends on regardless of their current status!

I served on the 82nd AB, we were on call every other month , no beer and could not leave Ft Bragg, the plan as I knew it, we were stationed at Pope AF base , and we would put on our chutes and draw weapons and amo. When called by the President our job was to jump into any situation world wide as ordered,this what see as the need for parachute regiments

They have to be able to recruit Jumpers from someplace.

How can mobility ever be outdated? It’s a way to get a lot of guys on the ground in a hurry where they’re needed. As long as you need Grunts airborne units will of possible use. Guaranteed if you don’t have that capability you can’t manufacture it quickly, so better to hold that card in the deck.

Even if it is rite of passage and not strategically sound, it was more fun than I could have had anywhere in this lifetime. And it stays with you. I am 69 years old and nothing scares me. Life will keep throwing stuff at you, but when your standing pulse rate is 60 BPM standing at an open door, you know who you are and what you can do.

I would say just because we have not had to us it in past years does not mean we do not need it. The best weapon is one that you do not have to use all the time. I do belive that Airborne and Air Asualt and Air Moble Operations should be used to gether. As well Airborne and Air moble Operations should be combined. Trun the jump School at Ft.Benning into a one site combined traing. With this consept I belive we would have a more fexible option on the Battle field and a Force Multiplier.

Yes, United States Marine Corps, Force Recon Company use free fall all the time.

This is a question I would expect from a LEG. Airborne units remain a major tactical deterrent used in diplomacy. There are times when you don't want to start dropping smart bombs all over the place, so you can drop 20k paratroopers. There may not be an airfield or navy units in the area, airborne units can be on the ground within 24hrs. And from my experience, the mind set and discipline of paratroopers is over all much harder then non airborne units.

Will we need Airborne Ops the size we had during WWII? Probably not. However Airborne Ops is still the fastest way to get lots of "boots on the ground" when that ground is a long way away. We won't always be able to land an aircraft with troops in a hostile environment, but we can sure as hell drop paratroopers almost anywhere. It is faster and more efficient than trying to land multiple aircraft and then having to get them back off the ground in a hurry. In today's UW arenas, Special Ops need the ability to insert via HALO/HAHO. Rangers still need the static line ability for some of their operations such as the quick strike on airfields at the beginning of the current Iraqi Freedom campaigns. The ability to move an entire division, such as the 82d to a hot spot like Ukraine or N. Korea on a moments notice is also key to US defense. Just because we haven't had a major airborne op in the last 14 years, doesn't mean they aren't needed in the future.

Well Chief, in my opinion, (I used to be a EO2, so jumping out of aircraft isn't really my thing), the number of folks hurt in the jump itself, combined with the amount of ammo and food an individual can carry, lack of armor or heavy weapons, in my mind that is why no one has seen a "large scale" airborne operation since the second world war. Spec-ops are "special", so I'm not going to include them. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.