Do Marines Really Need a New Parachute System? Congress Wants to Know

Marines go to the Army’s Airborne School in Ft. Benning. There is no Marine jump school. They do their five jumps at Benning and get the same jump wings as the Army. They earn their gold Navy/Marine Parachutist Insignia by performing 5 additional jumps while in a jump billet in the Marines.

I believe it would be good for the Army and the Marines if Marines went to Airborne school and got their wings. I believe it would promote good standards, competition, and shared knowledge between branches. I also believe that Marine combat arms rolls should have jump knowledge for rescue missions and new ways of insertion.

I believe they are talking about HALO jumps by special ops types, not regular low altitude static line jumps like those taught at the Army Airborne School. I think all HALO instruction is taught by the Army Special WArfare Center and School with some classroom stuff at Ft Bragg and the live jump training in AZ, with all services sending their spec ops guys there. What this sounds like is that the Marines want a chute with a drouge chute that comes out and helps slow you down and stabilize you during freefall. But the reason they give is disconcerting. They say they need it because they can't keep their troops qualified and current in the task of freefall, so rhey need a "training wheels" device to help them. Seems to me there could be a way to give their halo training a higher priority. I am not knowledgeable on Marine deployments, but I suspect if they really wanted to, they could find a way to keep those jumpers proficient. Otherwise, don't give them that mission and use SEALs or SF who are proficient and keep current.