Paratroopers' Evening Jump Gone Wrong

On October 2nd, a C-130 carrying 87 soldiers during an Arctic Anvil evening exercise missed the intended drop zone at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. This caused a majority of the paratroopers to land in the surrounding trees and 22 of them to sustain minor injuries. Arctic Anvil is the largest exercise held at Shelby in almost 50 years.The personnel on site were able to confirm all of the paratroopers were successfully rescued and their injuries were treated immediately. Only seven of them required any sort of extensive care, and the most severe injury is a broken back. That soldier has also been confirmed to receive a successful surgery and start to be on the mend.Lt. Col. Matt Myer, the commander for the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment said in a statement "The community around Camp Shelby, MS went above and beyond to care for your Geronimos. From the Doctors at Forest General Hospital, Camp Shelby Range Control, Camp Shelby Assault Strip Fire Department, and the Mississippi Task Force Urban Search and Rescue."He continued to say the paratroopers did an excellent job under the circumstances and those who are able to, will prepare to go back out to continue the mission. LTC Myer used social media to ensure the family of his paratroopers were kept up to date the entire time, despite misinformation spreading across news outlets.While we ourselves would not want to get stuck in a tree during a jump, it is also understood this is a risk paratroopers and exercise planners prepare for. The misguided C-130 was one of many that participated in the exercise and there does not seem to be mention of why that aircraft missed the DZ.This shows that training and preparedness are crucial, especially for those that jump out of perfectly good airplanes in the dark. While civilian media portrayed the event as almost catastrophic, in reality, the status of every paratrooper was known immediately and within a few short hours, all personnel were recovered and received the appropriate care based on injury level.All in all, we hope those injured recover quickly and we extend a 'well done' to the command team and recovery teams for this event. It could have been worse, but it wasn't and that says a lot.