THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408120568
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Olive-green parachutes floated like giant mushrooms in the still August air over Fentress Field.
On the ground, a crowd of airborne veterans - from World War II to Desert Storm - looked on with awe and envy.
Some of the old-timers brought children to see what their grandfathers once did for a living.
All stood at attention when the 82nd Airborne Division's fight song was sung by the ``All-American Airborne Chorus.''
More than 300 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., jumped Thursday morning from five Air Force C-130 Hercules transports.
The training jump, rare for this Navy area, kicked off the division's national convention, being held in Norfolk. The convention will end with a banquet Saturday night at the Scope complex.
Nearly 1,500 members and their families who are attending were bused to the field to witness the demonstration.
A few hundred others turned out to share the spectacle, their numbers perhaps reduced because the Navy at one point had closed the event to the public.
``I love it,'' said David McNelly, 39, who bicycled 15 miles from the Oceanfront at Virginia Beach to witness the show. ``These guys are like brothers. . . all of them . . . all the way back to the old-timers.''
McNelly pedaled just under an hour to reach the Navy's Fentress Field in the backwoods of Chesapeake.
``I'd do anything to see them,'' he said. ``I did this, didn't I? Once Airborne, you are Airborne the rest of your life.''
McNelly completed 22 jumps with the elite division, before his Army tour ended in 1989.
``They have quite a tradition to live up to,'' McNelly said. ``I'm all fired up. I've been waiting for this since 1989.''
The 30-minute mock airborne assault was conducted in a series of passes by the transports.
Paratroopers jumped in waves of about 40, leaving the planes at 1,000 feet while traveling through the air at 130 knots.
The troopers glided in near silence to a grassy landing between two runways.
``If you think their morale is good today, you're right,'' said Maj. Gen. William M. ``Mike'' Steele, the division's commanding general and the first paratrooper out of the plane Thursday.
The reason, he said, is that they made a daylight jump, with no combat equipment and at an altitude of more than 800 feet. ``The routine way,'' Steele said, ``is from 800 feet, or less, at night and with all their combat equipment.''
Sgt. David Mello, 22, was greeted on his glide by a large white bedsheet held by family members on the ground. It was painted with a ``Welcome'' and his name in big red letters.
``We're so proud of him,'' said his mother, Leslie Mello of Virginia Beach.
She hadn't seen her son since November. ``With this Haiti thing,'' she said, ``they have been on alert and are not allowed to leave.''
The troopers will spend a long weekend in town while they attend the convention, giving the family an opportunity for a reunion before the paratroopers board the transports and return to Fort Bragg, arriving the only way paratroopers should, by parachute.
``Use to do it everyday,'' said Henry Tarrall of Norfolk, a veteran of 36 jumps between 1956 and 1959 as he watched the young men and women paratroopers. ``It gets my adrenaline going every time I see them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
A member of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., drifts
toward Fentress Field in Chesapeake Thursday morning.
Staff color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
``Once Airborne, you are Airborne the rest of your life''
A crowd of paratrooping veterans - from World War II to Desert Storm
- looks on with awe and envy Thursday morning as more than 300
paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C.,
jumps from five Air Force C-130 Hercules transports at Fentress
Field in Chesapeake. The mock airborne assault kicked off the
division's national convention in Norfolk. The convention will end
with a banquet Saturday night at Norfolk's Scope.
[This photo appeared on Page B1 of the Metro News section on the
same date.]
by CNB