Ranger Jump Into Panama

[Looon]

I roger all of that shit!

[Silverback]

I know the fact that we were not receiving direct fire during our jump sits raw with some folks. The face of war is changing constantly and we as troopers need to change along with it. If you read the requirements for "Assault Landing" credit it is fairly clear and straight forward. I will paraphrase for the sake of brevity. Full text can be found in AR600-8-22,7-25.

7–25. Assault landing credit—Arrowhead device
a. Assault landing credit (award of the bronze arrowhead) may be
made to units of the Army who, in the combat zone of a battle,
campaign, or expedition as established by Joint Chiefs of Staff or
DA, accomplishes one of the following types of assault operations:
(1) Makes a parachute jump into enemy-held territory as a part of
an organized force carrying out an assigned tactical mission.

b. The assault operation will be of such scope as to warrant DA
designation as a battle or campaign and be of such magnitude as to
include tactical elements of at least one other Service. The forces
committed should be spearheading a major assault into enemy controlled
territory. The operation will be such that the committed
forces will ultimately control the area in which they have landed
and not rely on immediate link-up with other forces or extrication
after a hit-and-run type of mission.

I am open for discussion on this topic. I am not trying to be a hero I'm just trying to make sure my soldiers don't get slighted.

[Spartan]

Understand and it seems pretty straightforward. But why did it take DA so long to call it a combat jump? Politics?

How was the jump anyway - were there enemy in the AO, and if so, how far away were they?

Obviously this has nothing to do with the qualifications of making a jump as defined by DA. It just seems that the various Ranger Airborne Operations into combat have been opposed and from what we saw on the news, there was not any opposition to the 173rd jump. Kind of like the 82nd wanting to jump into Grenada or Torrijos Tocumen which were largely secured at the time.

By the definition you posted, those would have been good to go for combat jumps as well.

Doesn't take anything away from the unit that the enemy was not there when you guys jumped in.

I am glad you are here to tell us about it.

[Silverback]

We conducted a link up on the A/F with a group of troopers from FT Carson. I am not sure of the actual sitemp, but there were approx. 3 Iraqi divisions between us and our final obj. Iraqi divisions didn't fill out the same as US Divisions.

Our major threat in the area was AA and rockets. (I was told) We had a couple rockets fired at us to no avail while we were at the A/F.

Additionally it bears mentioning that we assumed the role originally planned for the entire 4th ID. 4th ID has a whole bunch more people than we did.

I think our jump had a strategic and political agenda.

[hit_it]

hey Silverback, remember the guy on that other site trying to give you shit about the jump? you should go say hi to his bitch ass if you ever get down to Bragg.

i can't believe that idiot even opened his pie hole against what your boys did.

fucking idiot.

[Silverback]

I haven't been to that board in months. I am pretty much of the opinion that after 19 years of peace this was my time and I am wearing every fucking sticker I get!

[Silverback]

Point taken.
Dealing with my friends non-chalant (sp?) attitude can cause me to lose sight of such things.
Still struck me as funny at the time though. I can almost see their faces all tensed up and ready for action, while he acts like the total prick I know he can be. lol.

Shame on those Paratroopers. For goodness sake from the way they were acting you would think they had just jumped into a country we were invading. I'd smoke everyone of those witless fucks!

[AbnRgr289]

On Christmas day my plt went to the city of David to take an arms warehouse. Once again the 7th Id came to rescue us. Relieve us in place, I mean.

I was a pfc 60 gunner. As everyone knows, that is a E-5 position in the rest of the Army.

The 7th ID E-5 came up to me and I lined him out on my gun position. Field of fire and so forth.

I then told him that I also had a claymore mine set up 50 meters to the front.

He then looked at me real confused and embarassed and asked me( him a SGT and me a PFC) if I would show him how to work the claymore.

That is a very good example of why RANGERS DO, AND WILL ALWAYS LEAD THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Ranger Luna, you wouldn't have just happened to be in Aco 2nd Plt. 3/75 with Combat Kelly eating fried chicken and drinking pepsi's on the north end of the airfield, would you? We finally got some HOT pepsi, but we didn't get any damn fried chicken. But we did also get rescued by the 7th ID. Drop me a PM sometime and I'll tell you who this is, but you have to do the same. "MORTARMAGGOT" HOOAH?

[remerson175]

I heard a similar story, except it was no two-way firefight. The boys from the 82d got a little trigger happy and fired up a platoon of Rangers (with no WIAs), I think from 1st batt who were sitting on a blocking position.

One of the guys on my team was in the 504th and got there just prior to them going into Panama. He related a similar story, he did not jump in though. He said it was only one battalion, I think 2/504th.

I was a laying in a support position on Objective Pig behind the terminal on Tocumen,and from above , the 82nd had jumped right on top of us. It was a good thing we saw them and stopped the assault. Spent nearly the next hour or so policing them up and removing them from our OBJ. Panamanians later were bringing us equipment of theirs they had left on the airfield after they jumped. We were offering money for weapons and we were getting army shit back that belonged to the 82nd.