 From New York City, where the American stage begins, here is another program with a cast of outstanding players. Public service time has been made available by this station for your Army and your Air Force to bring you this story. That's proudly we hail the United States Army's Airborne Infantry. The story is entitled, The Long Jump. This is the story of rugged soldiers and the training they undergo that turns them from good infantry soldiers into fighting specialists as proudly we hail the paratroopers. Our first act curtain will rise in just a moment. But first, young man, if you want to take a good job and stick with it, why don't you enlist in the United States Army? Ask the man who knows. Ask the career soldier. He's the man who's made a lifetime job of it. Find out about all your opportunities in the service down at your nearest United States Army recruiting station. Look into it right away. And now your Army and your Air Force present the proudly we hail production, The Long Jump. All stock. The engines keep throwing your name back at you, beating it over and over into your head like a needle stuck in a groove of a phonograph record. Even though the men sitting motionless on either side of you are your friends and buddies, they offer no comfort now. Each man with his own thoughts, each man committed to the Long Jump. All the weeks of training, all the weeks of learning and preparing have led irrevocably to this point. And in looking back, you suddenly feel what a short time it's been since the day you arrived at Benning with a group of volunteers to begin paratroop training. All right, Eddie. As a sergeant, I'm not a very good speech maker, but welcome to Fort Benning. Welcome to the airborne infantry. You think basic was tough? We've got something here. It'll make it seem like a tea dance before you throw. Eddie's, Eddie's. Now the corporal here is going to march over to the mess hall where I advise you to eat hearty because I got an idea you're going to be awful busy this afternoon. Good old Sarge. He was so tough you'd have thought he'd been hatched out of a leather egg. Well, that's the way it started for you. By the end of that first day, you wondered how you'd ever make another. Lower me gently, mother, for I'll be Queen of the May. Oh, it's not so bad lying down. It's getting up that hurts. Friend, I've got news. I shall never rise again. The name's Jeff Marlowe. I haven't put it on my tombstone. Glad to know you, Jeff. Paul Stark. Paul, didn't anyone ever tell you never to volunteer for anything? It seems I heard that somewhere. Oh, I got an idea what they meant. Is that body lying there on the other side of you alive or dead? If you're referring to me, son, I don't rightly know. I bet I can rightly tell where you come from, sir. Yeah, and where would that be? Northern Maine. Northern Maine? What country is that in, son? What do we call you, Tex? Well, my given name is Percival Kildare McBride III. But I guess since we're all suffering along together, y'all can call me Percy. Percy? Where'd you get a handle like that? Well, I guess he's just given to me by my mommy and my pappy. Like any other name. Where are you from, short stuff? Ebbetsfield? Yeah. I come up out of the pitches box. Oh, I know you. You're Sal Magley. Yeah, and you must be Leo DeRosha. It appears to me, son, that the afternoon roundup's been too much for these boys. Yeah, it looks that way. What do they call you, short stuff? Oh, lots of things, buddy. You guys can call me. Sammy will go on his fly shack at a 412th. Whoa. Hey, fellas, I got an idea. Now that we've been formally introduced, let's not get off and go to sleep. Son, I'll buy that. Three spades. Double? Ray double. And raise a pot. Good night. Bless you all. And shut up. Those first few days were brutal. You thought you were pretty good at PT, but you never knew what PT was until the sides put you through the paces. Push ups, knee bends, back bends, everything in the book over and over and over, and then to top it off a nice 5 or 10 mile jog uphill and down there. Then the jumps are 4 and 6 foot platforms. Hour upon hour, learning how to land relaxed, how to somersault forward and backward. Toughening up, they call it. And brother, they're not kidding. No, no, no. Look, McBride, how many times have I got to tell you to keep your knees bent? Icehacker is a paratrooper. You'll make a good bat boy roll when you land. Don't stick your head in the dirt like an ostrich. PLF, PLF, PLF, parachute landing pole. That's what it means, Molo. Not how to make like a ton of cement. All I can say, Stark, is that you're lucky this cabin has a mock-up only three feet off the ground, not a plane a thousand feet in the air. A long drop on a clear day, buddy, the way you just did it. A parachute's a thing of infinite beauty. Intricately fashioned out of silk, its light, fragile, seeming 28 foot canopy is a tough, durable umbrella of safety. Composed of 112 pie-shaped pieces of double-soaked silk, it has a tensile strength of 40 pounds per square inch, while its braided shrouds can take up to 450 pounds of sudden pull. Your shoot is a thing you come to know as well as your own face. There's no telling how many times you pack and repack it during your training. Your life can well depend on how you care for this graceful instrument of descent, and so you care for it seriously and thoughtfully. How's that? It looks fine. Well, it's one way to find out. Shall I do the honors? Every man to his own ripcourt, I always say. You may bail out at leisure. Oh, but it's so far down there. You must be brave. What's the matter? Have y'all gone loco? Go away. We're preparing a jump. You've been doing it all week. You're going to do it on Sunday. Stand back, you longhorn. Give the man some room. Be brave, Paul. You pop that shoot in here, and you're going to have a time packing it up again. Pussy, will you go out and play? Hey, Samuel, these tender foot are going to pop that shoot. No, no, Pussy. Don't let it bother you. The Lonely Avenue in Flatbush, we call them eagles. Come on, give me room. You're out, emo! Ray can have the pleasure of packing it all up again. From Lulu to Hangman's Drop, the training really picks up and gets off the ground. You get off the ground with it. The Lulu is all of that. 30 feet up on a platform, you buckle on your parachute harness and raise your hands overhead on the risers. And you wait for the serge to send you merrily on your way. The risers are attached to twin parallel lines that slant downward to the ground. Somewhere between the time you leave the platform and the end of the line, the serge will shout, let go. And you'll be set free to make your own three-point landing. Let go! That's right, boy. Keep landing like that, we'll make a trooper out of you yet. All right, McBride, you're next. Sergeant, I'm so plumb full of sawdust already. I believe I'll give up eating. Hangman's Drop, it's a beautiful, rightfully named. 34 feet in the air, you hang face down, thinking that Mother Earth never looked so far away and then before you can dwell on it too much, they set you free and you fall along 15 feet before the harness jerks up to a stop. Hangman's Drop. To teach you what it's like when you really hit the silk. And then on the 250-foot tower, you even get closer to the real thing. They turn you loose under an open chute and you guide it to the ground in a free fall. All right. At ease, Bono. Man, he's your way up there. My granddaddy always said he'd like to have been a bird. Well, I don't know whether I rightly agree with him about now. Here you go, Stark. Yes! Rider boy, rider! They're relaxed. I do declare if he don't look pretty. Like a bird! First in a bunch of hands at a scratch party. Okay, tomorrow's the day you've been working taught. No more dry runs. From here on in, it's a real thing every time. When you first came here, I told you what a sad-looking bunch of sacks you were. Today, you don't look so bad. After tomorrow's jump, you look even better and after five jumps and you get your badge, you look like what you are. Barra troopers. Best outfit in any army anywhere. Big day tomorrow. What do you suppose it'll be like? Really, I mean. I don't know. Ask me after tomorrow. Piece of cake, I'll bet. Nothing to it, huh? Why don't you go to sleep? That's a good question. What's the matter, Deary? Want me to come hold your hand? Ah, your barracks bag, your Brooklyn bean ball. I'd be mighty pleased if y'all would park down. This child needs to sleep. Yeah, but who can sleep? I couldn't get all set up! Playing in flight. Slicing through air and time to bring you to that appointed moment. With a cold, empty knot deep in your stomach, no amount of concentration, no amount of reassurance can remove. You look around at the men in your outfit. Jeff, next to you, stare straight ahead, unmoving. He's got no time for jokes now. Percy, on the other side, his long, lanky frame stiff and unyielding. Sam, hunched forward like a man who feels cold or a man in prayer. And so it is in one form or another with all the others in the play. This is your outfit. These are your friends. And you're all committed to the long jump. This stick, get ready. Time has come. Stand up. Hook up. Instinctively, as though in a dream you grab the snap fastener at the end of the static line. You stand up and hook the snap fastener to the static line. A simple procedure to produce a monumental result. Check equipment. That's okay. That's okay! A matter of seconds now, a matter of seconds, and you'll be jumping Earthward. Three, okay. Two, okay. One, okay. That's everybody. Stand in the door. Jeff goes, and it's your turn. You look out and down at the Earth, racing along below. Second seems an hour. You feel the force of the plane slipstream plucking at you. Knees flexed, you feel as though someone had nailed you to the floor of the plane, and then suddenly, somehow, the plane's gone and you're falling. Falling through the air sea. It seems forever in the ground, almost in your face, before the wonderfully welcomed jerk of the open chute brings your roaring descent to a halt, and you start drifting down in a chute-filled sky. Jumpers in the air! The ground, the growing feeling of elation joining you is a drop lower. You check the wind, check your sway, and you finally relax as the ground reaches up to receive you. Okay, my shark, look! We did it! Sure, I always said a good example. That was downright exciting. Now, don't tell me they let you jump out. Boy, they sure enough did. But you didn't have a chute on. That's what made it so exciting, boy. And so the long-awaited day becomes a reality. You're a paratrooper. But don't think because you've earned that bad your training is over. The sign to the famous 80-second airborne you go on learning and you go on jumping. You jump in rough weather and rougher terrain. You take part in maneuvers that not only test your skill but perfect it. In the air and on the ground. You know rookie now. You're an experienced customer in a fast, exciting business. And then one fine day you get a chance to put your knowledge to work. You get a chance to find out how sharp you really are. I'm a man who's going to town. Y'all want to come along, Paul? Well, it might not be a bad idea. What about you, Jeff? I'm going, boy, but not with you birds. I got a date. Go on. I would go out with a squail like you. Sam, you will. You fugitive from a liverwurst factory. I'll have you... I'll get everybody out! I thought we were gonna... Don't tax yourself. Come on. Little man, what the stripe seems excited. These men... we got a problem. Real and tough. Headquarter just got words that a forest fire up above Ratton Pass has gotten out of hand. About 75 men, women, and children have been cut off. Now, this is the pitch. Lieutenant Cowan's words quickly and simply paint a pretty grim picture. A sudden wind shift and a large group of people cut off by a sea of fast-moving flame. They stand and fight, but the fire forces them back, hams them in, and the only way they can retreat is toward the sheer cliffs of a nasty 300-foot gulch. The distance across the gulch is about 500 feet, and somehow these people have got to cross that distance of purish. This platoon has the honor of being selected to carry out the mission. The plan is simple enough. We take a page from the Book of Korea and drop the sections of an M2 Treadway bridge on the safe side of the ravine. We'll drop with it, get it set up, run it across, and we'll bring the people out. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Only three things that make it a little tough. We'll be jumping at night into a heavily wooded area at the mercy of a 25-mile-an-hour wind. Nothing to it. I start from Redfield. Yeah, why don't we wait till morning? Because the fire won't. You know, I sure don't envy those poor folks fighting that fire. You know, I don't rightly envy us poor folk going to rescue them. You are listening to the proudly-we-hail production, The Long Jump. We will return in just a moment for the second act. Today, you young men of America have an excellent opportunity to learn a trade that will assure your future. The many fine technical schools of the United States Army are training men in such interesting fields as radio, radar, meteorology, mechanics, electronics, and many others. You can become a qualified technician trained to do an important job and do it right. For full details about an exciting career, visit your nearest United States Army Recruiting Station. There's no obligation, so plan ahead. Face your tomorrow today. You are listening to Proudly-We-Hail, and now we present the second act of The Long Jump. We've got to try and delay our shoots until we're fairly close. The wind's going to be rough. We don't want to spend the night spitting bark. Yes, Sergeant? I didn't mean to tell you it'll be another half-hour before we're over the drop point, sir. All right, fine. Sooner or the better. Sooner or the better. There's no knowing at that point how important the word sooner really is to those people fighting the fires somewhere below. See you tomorrow. All right, Ned. Move back across the dry bed and try to dig in there. No use, Tom. Now, don't tell me what use it is. What do you want to do, quit? No, no, I'm sorry, Ed. Don't forget it, Ned. Let me know when you have to give way again. Right. What are you doing here, Mrs. Robin? I thought I told you... You're trapped, aren't we? We can take our choice. Either jump off the cliff, or we burn up the house. I've got hold of your call, Mrs. Robin. Go on back and help take care of the children. Joe, dig it along the ridge. You're wrong to a lady, but get back where you belong. There! Mrs. Robin, keep an eye on her. Right, Tom. You can't hit me, Mrs. Robin. Harry, how are the others behaving? Fine, Tom. We'll have a chance. The wind. I know. Pray for it to shift. Go down. I have been. We all are. Good girl. Come along now, Mrs. Robin. Mike! Bring your men back to the ridge. We'll try to hold it here. This thing is speed and teamwork. You all know your jobs. It's up to the box car ahead of us to make sure those bridge sections land on the right side of the ravine. And it's up to us to see that we do too. And in one piece. All right. This stick gets ready. Stand up. Hook up. One by one, we go out into the dark void. Off to the left, you can see an anger. You can see an anger. You can see an anger. Off to the left, you can see an angry, jagged lip of flame wolfing its way toward the ravine's edge. The wind is drifting you fast. It's too fast. You'll land on the right side of the ravine, all right? But you got to be careful how you land. The dark forms of the trees reach up. And you brace yourself. Try to stay relaxed. Now the trees are just under you and coming up fast. Now. Well. I do declare. All right, Joe Pisces? I'll know the answer to that when I get the bark out of my teeth. I'm only eight to ten feet from the ground. I'll drop down and give you a hand. No need, Paul, boy. I'm a second cousin to a pole cat. I'll just shinny down this old trunk. A symbol of me! Anybody see how do your jeans come down? I'm not sure, sir, but I think I saw one shoot go into the ravine. I saw a couple of look that way, sir. All right, we'll have to worry about them later. Right now we got to get the sections of a bridge to locate and put together. They got luminous paint on them, so let's round them up on the devil. It looks mean over there. It'll be a lot meaner if we don't locate that section. I'll bet those rover boys planked it down in the ravine. That's a mighty unneighboring thought. There's the reason that most of us got caught up in the trees. It might have too. Too heavy, Paul. All the other sections made the ground. Well, you two birds keep an eye on the ground. First, you now watch the trees. Oh, snap, oh, snap. For one lousy bridge section. Stop! It's a lieutenant. Yeah, over here, lieutenant. Any luck? What's he think we'll do? Keep it a secret? That's just poor people over there. Think they know we've come to help them? Armageddon's paratroopers. They all land on the wrong side of the ravine. Look, they have done this over here. Good. Could they help us fight the thing? There's more men. No amount of men could stop this fire now. You think they land over there on purpose? I don't know. They all seem to get down in about the same place. What could they do over there? I couldn't win it. I don't mind for me so much. Those women and kids, I... Then we can't fight anymore. We can always pray. Well, it shouldn't come down in this part of the woods. Well, try over there, nitty-adge. Well, I do believe if it's not there, it's not with it. What a break. Hey, what's that way up in that tree? Where? Right over there. Something white. Hey, hardy! Yeah, we'll just think how smoky it is over there. Like it back to the lieutenant. Tell him we think we found it. Come on, guys. The woods, you move as quickly as you can. Five men on each side of the section. Already, smoke and ashes are thick around you. You wonder if it's too light for the people on the other side. It seems a long, slow way back to the point where the other sections of the bridge have been assembled, waiting this last necessary link. And flashlights ahead. You've arrived at last. Put her down. Easy. Ha! Janilly, Stokes, hook her in. What do you think, Sergeant? Gonna be awful close. I hope they don't start jumping into the ravine. That's a rough spot to be in. She's hooked. Good. All right, men. Let's get her across. Stark McBride, when she's over, you'll accompany me to help lead them out. Now, let's go buy the numbers. Take them, sir. Thanks, soldier. Got a half dozen more. Constance, carry it. As soon as the women and children are over, we'll get them out. This is the right warm spot. Watch your step, little lady. Another five minutes. I guess I'm free and paid off. Of course we're all right. Better hurry it up. That's pretty, wasn't she? As a matter of fact, she was. Even with dirt all over her face. I hope that Jeff doesn't catch sight of her. I hear well. Come on. Let's get those guys out of the hot sun. She's feels so good. Remember to get hearty down under the tree. No, we left them up there. On him it looked good. Well, you're going all slicked up. All right, I got a date, boy. Sure, he's going to tell her what a hero he is. She knows. She knows. All she has to do is look at me and she knows. I bet I know who she is. I bet you don't. Name is Mary. What? Who told you? I knew it. I knew he'd catch sight of her. I got news for him. Now what? You're going to get stood up, my beamish boy. For me? The boy's gone wild. Too much excitement. Don't you know, son, no girl ever stands your uncle Jeffrey up? This one's gone up. Hmm. You got some top-secret information? Yep. For years only. Whose ears? I'll tell you when I get back. Hey, where are you going? Got a date, boy. Wonderful girl. Name is Mary. Hey! Ha! Ha! Ha! With men who know the Army, it's the job you do that counts. Take the yard breakman, the dental technician, the petroleum chemist, or the weather observer. They're all soldiers like me, and they're all doing a wonderful job of making the United States Army the world's best. Why not make use of your skills in the Army? There's a job for every specialist and technician and a need for his special skills and a satisfying career for you with those special skills. Visit your local United States Army Recruiting Station real soon and learn about the benefits you can have when you enlist in the United States Army. This has been another program on Proudly We Hail, presented transcribed in cooperation with this station. Proudly We Hail is produced by the Recruiting Publicity Center for the United States Army and United States Air Force Recruiting Service. This is Mark Hamilton speaking, inviting you to tune in this same station next week for another interesting story on Proudly. We Hail.