Monthly Archives: February 2014

Jumping Out of Airplanes: How It’s Really Like

Posted on by Standard 5

My second article on Thought Catalog has gone live. People always ask me how it’s like jumping out of airplanes, and I could never quite put it. So, I took a lot of thought and I decided to tell it in the most matter fact way possible. I’m pretty proud of this one.

“There was blood upon the risers; there were brains upon the chute,
Intestines were a-dangling from his paratrooper’s suit,
He was a mess; they picked him up, and poured him from his boots,
He ain’t gonna jump no more.

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
He ain’t gonna jump no more!”
-Blood Upon the Risers: World War 2 American Paratrooper Song

One of the best and worst parts of being an Airborne Ranger is the airborne part. Civilian types tend to have a misconception of what jumping out of airplanes is like in the Army. When they picture it, they think of all those skydiving videos where you pleasantly enjoy the view as you have the thrill of a lifetime, screaming at the top of your lungs, and with adrenaline pumping through your system. Then you land softly and celebrate because you faced one of your fears. During the whole thing you took pictures; you then post them on Facebook, and people comment about how truly wild and crazy you are. The whole thing probably took about three or four hours.

Like everything else in the Army, it’s a longer, more painful process. I’m not particularly scared of heights, but jumping out of an airplane was one of the training events I dreaded the most during my time in uniform. The process goes as follows:

You see on the training calendar that there is a jump coming up. You wonder if there is a way you can sham your way out of it, but sadly for you, you’re unable to weasel out. Fuck it. You joined the Army to jump out of airplanes and kill people, right?

To minimize the odds of you killing or maiming yourself and your buddies, the day before, you go through sustainment training. Sustainment training is where you get repounded into your head all the proper steps and procedures for conducting airborne operations that you learned in Airborne School. This involves going through a dry run of all the things you’re supposed to do as a group when you jump into the abyss. You play out perfectly the appropriate actions when you hook-up: Hand-off the static line, jump with your legs together in a tight body position, counting to four-thousand, and feeling the opening shock of the parachute. Then you make sure to check your canopy has no holes in it by looking up; if you’re unable to put your head up it’s because your risers are twisted, you bicycle kick to untwist yourself. You keep a sharp lookout during decent, make sure to avoid other jumpers, trees, telephone wires, and other potential hazards. You then play out what you will do if you do run into any of those hazards. You then prepare to land, putting a slight bend in your knee, keeping your eyes to the horizon. You then land by hitting the balls of your feet followed by your calves, thighs, buttocks, and pull up muscle. They actually call it the pull up muscle. That’s the end of sustainment training and now you are ready for your jump.

The next day, you go to the airfield to rig up your chute, harness, weapon, and put on your 45-plus-pound rucksack. God help you if you’re a mortarman or a machine gun gunner; you have a shit-ton more weight to carry. You then get inspected by a Jump Master to make sure you didn’t rig yourself all sorts of fucked up.

This is where the fun begins. The bird is probably going to be delayed by an hour or two. Meanwhile the harness is crushing your balls, and you’re unable to move effectively because you have your heavy ass rucksack dangling from your waist. You’re sitting down, using your helmet as a support for your lower back. While you’re waiting for an unknowable amount of time, you fall asleep. Suddenly, you’re awaken, still groggy; you are told to get up. You struggle to get yourself up and fumble around like a football, until one of your buddies takes pity on you and offers you a helpful hand. As you get to your feet, you realize you have to take a piss. Too late, dick face, your 50-plus buddies are already lining up to get on the bird. You don’t really walk to the bird but instead press forward in waddle-like, hunched over fashion in order to support the weight you’re carrying.

You approach the C-17, a humongous fortress of an airplane whose size leaves you in awe. Instantly the distinct smell of jet fuel and heat of the engines hit you. You follow the men in front up the ramp of the C-17 and take a seat. The ramp goes up, the plane taxis on the run way and takes off. As the plane settles into flight, the once roaring sounds of the engines turns into a hum.

Even if it’s not your first jump, the feeling of uneasiness and fear never completely go away. This shit is fucking dangerous even with all the precautions the military takes. On my first jump in battalion, we had one of our men get his parachute tangled with two other jumpers and got killed in the horrible training accident. The other two Rangers suffered serious injuries. Broken ankles, legs, backs, and concussions occur enough to be a legitimate concern each time one rigs up their chute.

At times the flight only takes twenty minutes, at others several hours. The two side doors of the C-17 open, and your ears are consumed by the fury of the wind. It’s hard to hear anything else. You see the Jump Master give you the signal to “Hook Up,” and in unison everyone echoes the command. “Check equipment!” screams the Jump Master. You paranoialy check all your straps and hooks, making sure none of them somehow came undone. Then the soldier in the very back slaps the ass of the one in front of him while saying “Okay.” This creates an ass slapping domino effect that continues until it reaches the very first jumper who then says, “Okay Jump Master!”

You stand there with your ruck hanging between your legs waiting to jump. Its heavy, uncomfortable, and you’re hating your life. You probably should have just gone to college. Your back is cramping up; you lean to the side of the plane to help support yourself and relieve some of the stress. The plane is encountering some turbulence, and you know this jump is going to fucking suck. After being tortured by this, you’re not even scared of jumping anymore. You just want to get the fuck off the bird so you can take the goddamn ruck off from in between your legs.

“One minute,” echoes through the plane. You’re looking in front of you, eyes on the red light which will soon turn green. Finally, you’re getting off this fucking bird. “30 seconds,” the birds coming upon the drop zone, and you’re completely focused on what you’re going to do next. The Jump Master has placed the first jumper in front of the door. The light turns green and “Go!” orders the Jump Master as he slaps the first jumper’s ass signaling him to jump. With one-second spacing between them, each man proceeds after the other. Your mind goes blank as you walk towards the door, all the training kicks in and everything you’re suppose to do has become muscle memory at this point. You hand off your static line, make a right face, and jump. You count to four-thousand, keeping your body tight as you get sucked out. Your chute opens and the once deafening sound of jet engines and wind is replaced by the tranquility of the being airborne as you slowly descend to the Earth. You begin to look in all directions and see your buddies all around you. You’re hoping you don’t run into one of them. You see one is getting too close, and you pull the risers in an attempt to slip away, but they really don’t do much. He spreads-eagle and he bounces off your chute, going on his merry way.

Now you must prepare to land. You drop your ruck, grab your risers, hold them firmly, keep your eyes on the horizon, and bend your knees slightly. You hope you don’t land on thorn bushes or if you’re doing an air field seizure, on the tarmac. You hit the ground hard. It knocks the wind out of you. You lay there for a moment or two, trying to figure out if you’re hurt or have broken anything. Luckily everything seems to be fine, and you begin to perform your final point of performance: taking that piss you’ve been holding in since you got on the bird.

~Raul Felix

Skill Vs. Serendipity: Why Men Are Studs And Women Are Sluts

Posted on by Standard Reply

(c) cso237(taeb)

Like oh my god, I can’t believe our societal double standard. Why is it that men can fuck around and be studs, while if I fuck too many dudes, I’m a slut?” That’s a question many a young lady has asked herself as she fandangos her iPhone filled with text messages from the two guys she is currently banging at random intervals and a few others who she may bang in the future.

Why is there a double standard? Is it because the evil patriarchy has put into place the systematic oppression of women and uses sex as one of its many tools? Is it because biologically speaking, men subconsciously correlate a woman’s previous promiscuity as an indicator of future behavior and the likelihood she will cheat or worse, trap him into raising a child that isn’t his? Or maybe, just maybe, in order to get laid, a woman doesn’t have to do Jack shit and a man has to tromp through a bunch of bullshit?

Most guys don’t give a shit about girls style, race, where she went to school, or what she does for living when their sole objective is to fornicate with them. Whether she’s an indie-punk chick, a hipster, a quirky nerdy girl, a beauty queen, a preppy, a sexy tomboy, or even one of the few genuinely attractive hardcore feminazis, their pussies are all warm, pink, and moist on the inside.

As Chris Rock said, “It’s easy for ya’ll [to turn down sex], every woman in here since you were 13, every guy you’ve met has been trying to fuck ya.” The truth is that it requires absolutely no skill whatsoever on a chicks part to get a dick to fill her up. Unless she’s an absolute behemoth of a woman with a fucked up face, most of you ladies, if you truly wanted to, can look through your current contacts and find a dozen guys willing to fuck you tonight. Or you can just go to the bar, wear a cute little outfit, and make seductive little faces that convey how much you want a cock up in your guts.

Casual and random sex for you girls is a pure act of serendipity. Other than looking cute and being pleasant, it requires no investment on your part at all. You have a girls’ night out where you “just wanna dance” and enjoy yourself in your circle as you get hit on by guys you consider creepy because they don’t have the style you’re into. Then finally, one who has the look and attitude you’re into finally hits on you. All you have to do is enjoy the attention he gives you; let him do the talking, giggle, agree with him. Play with your hair; drink a few to loosen you up, and next thing you know, you have a mouth full of cum as you finish blowing him in the front seat of his Camaro.

Casual and random sex for a man is an act of skill, perseverance, and a little bit of luck. There are certain standards we as men must meet and conditions we must operate under in order to get into your panties. First, we have to have confidence to approach you and face the stacked odds that you’ll ignore us, nicely say no, or tell us to fuck off because we’re not your type. Some chicks like pretty, blue eyed white guys, others like tatted up bad boys, while others hate their fathers enough to date a man of a different race. If we’re not the right type for you, we’re shit out of luck.

Secondly, you ladies have to be in the right mood to be even hit on. If the chicks period is extra heavy, if she’s undergoing some stressful time where she just wants the whole world to leave her alone, or she feels like being a cunt because she’s too cool to talk to anyone; then most men, no matter how charming or good looking, have no chance.

Let’s say that a man is able to jump those first two hurdles, he has the look a girl is attracted to or at least interested in and she is not in some rabid bitch mood. He still has to say things to keep a girls little feminine minds interested. This is where he has to use his experiences from failures and successes of yore. He has to assess the situation, pick a subject matter to talk about that is sure to make her feel intellectually stimulated, emotionally connected, and make her laugh. Depending on how good-looking of a dude he is, the degree of how funny he has to be varies.

Then there is the unforgiving Best Friend Forever (BFF) Barrier. Ladies, many of you have perfected this to an art form by the age of 21. You clumsily flop from one bar to another in your high heels. Upon reaching a new destination, through slut-mosis, you form a sphere shaped BFF Barrier effectively blocking out the rest of the world. Usually, the hottest chick will be in the middle, underneath the watchful of eyes of her less attractive friends. If a man should be so lucky to be able to attract the attention of the girl he’s after, he still must win approval from iron fisted BFF Barrier. He must outwit, charm, befriend, and persuade them to rally for his cause. If he is unable to do so, then they will veto him by passive aggression: they will start looking the other way, check their phones, and physically boxing him out with their flailing, I mean, dancing.

Upon completing that objective, it’s still not all smooth sailing from there. If a man is unable to seal the deal on the first night, there is less than 25% chance that’ll he’ll ever see or hear from this chick again to get another try since western women these days are notoriously fickle. They’ll lie about not seeing a text (bitch please, you’re on your phone 24/7, we’re not stupid, we don’t believe your poorly thought out lies), will wait forever to respond, will make plans but never confirm, or flake on dates without giving it a second thought because they just didn’t feel like it or found a better option.

Its rough, but these are the facts of the dating world that we as men operate in. We understand the supply and demand system. We have a demand for your little pink lady parts and chicks, as the supplier, have autonomy over the distribution of the goods. We want those goods, and are thus are willing to trudge through market driven price of chick-bullshit that comes with it. A man has to be able to brush off rejection with a simple, “Oh well, fuck it, her loss,” and move on, never thinking of her again. While most chicks, if they ever even have the balls to hit on guy and get rejected, will make it an emotionally significant event in their lives that will inspire many a shitty poem and emotioncon laden text messages to their BFF’s.

Adjusting for those extremely rare times when he got retardedly lucky, he had to earn every notch he gets. He had to have the confidence to approach, the right look, catch her at the right time, say the right things, make her laugh and smile, charm her and her friends. If he didn’t pee in her butt the night they met, he had to take her for drinks, charm her some more, impress her with his life story and interests, not say anything too stupid, make the right moves, in order to just lay the pipe. For ever pipe he laid, he has had to deal with half a dozen or more other chicks shitty attitudes, lies, flakiness, bullshit, fickleness, shit tests, stupid friends, irrational behaviors, and a host of other unique problems. This is why a man who is able to secure sex from various women is considered a stud. All a woman has to do is: look relatively decent, show up to a place where men gather, not be a bitch, and open her legs. She doesn’t have to approach, she doesn’t have to particular look, she doesn’t have to catch him at the right time, say the right things, or even win his friends over. She just needs to show up, be serendipitous, and it’s cocks galore. This is why a chick who has sex easily with various men is a considered a slut. In a capitalistic society, we value skill over mediocrity. The skills of being a stud are so hard to acquire that only a small percentage of men are able to accomplish it, in turn, society holds it in prestige. While the low level skill of being a slut can easily be mastered by any chick with a shitty enough upbringing.

So, ladies, as you text the couple of guys you’re banging, just think about how much bullshit you put him through to get into those panties or better yet, think of all the men you’ve rejected and how many rejections they have to go through just to eventually get a piece of ass. Surely, you didn’t have to put as much effort to get the current cocks you’re sucking.

~Raul Felix

Appeared On Thought Catalog: Skill Vs. Serendipity: Why Men Are Studs And Women Are Sluts.