Abstract

THE TEXTS included here were collected at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the IoIst Airborne Division, in April of 1961. The idea for such a project reverted back to my own tour of duty as a parachutist from 1954 to I956; aware that sung cadences prevailed among soldiers, I thought it worthwhile to get some of these cadence chants on tape-something which to my knowledge has not been attempted before. Therefore, with help from the personnel of the Public Information Office at the base, who lent me a small transistor tape recorder, I was able to run beside the troops during their daily exercise and gather the material presented here. By way of introduction it seems necessary to sketch in something about the Ioist Airborne Division in general and the paratrooper in particular. The division's history, though short in span of years, reveals a number of achievements. Activated in 1942 as one of the first groups in American Armed Forces' history, the Ioist jumped both at Normandy and in Holland during the war prior to receiving a unit citation at Mourmelon, France, in I945. Shortly after the Axis capitulated, the United States government deactivated the unit from status, but reformed it again in 1956, when the Ioist became one of the first divisions to be shaped into battle groups rather than battalions and regiments.1 Ironically, little of the unit's outstanding background is reflected in the lore of the individual paratrooper. Many of the men who now make up the ranks of the Ioist scarcely remember the Second World War. (the average age of the enlisted private is eighteen.) Their interests converge rather on the narrowness of their regimented existence-their rationed food, their training, their curtailed freedom, and their next jump. Yet the parachutist remains a rarity amid the overall conformity of Army life, for he has volunteered to jump out of a plane, and his training stresses physical fitness, fortitude, and mental alertness; consequently, the soldier represents the army's finest fighting men. It is hardly surprising that the paratrooper himself believes he is the roughest, toughest bundle of airborne hell ever to pass through the doors of an aircraft. Airborne soldiers, like Marines, are noted for their devil-may-care attitude and their inbred esprit de corps. They possess one thing which elevates them above the miserable straight leg (non-jumping soldier): the touch of insanity it takes to step out of an airplane at fifteen hundred feet. To accomplish this feat, however, the novice must suffer through three or four weeks of intensive training, climaxed in the final week by five consecutive jumps. At the end of this jump school the trooper receives his wings, the emblem of his prowess, and these, along with his jump boots, he treasures above all other belongings. His training complete, the new parachutist returns to his own outfit to begin the endless round of army life. When off maneuvers, the soldier's day usually follows a set pattern: up at five-thirty for muster; chow at six followed by calisthenics and a two to three mile

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