I've been a paratrooper all my life.
I joined the Army at 19 as a soldier and spent about four and a half years with them. Then I broke my back in a freefall parachuting accident and spent a year in rehabilitation back in the U.K.
In Italy the Coach is a paratrooper who jumps out of the plane but doesn't know if the parachute will open or not.
My first job was as a treetopper, and I was so damn good at it they called me 'Squirrel.' And then I joined the military and became a paratrooper. And later on in life I raced motorcycles and cars.
I've remained in touch with more than a dozen descendants of Gremlin Special survivors, victims, and rescuers. I treasured my friendship with Earl Walter Jr., the lead paratrooper who jumped into the valley to protect the survivors.
I always said my favorite position was company commander in the Paratroop Brigade.
In my teens, I joined the Parachute Regiment. I jumped out of lots of airplanes, as much as the Government budget would allow us to. I did two active tours of duty: Northern Ireland, and then the Falklands war.
My grandpa was a World War II paratrooper, my uncle a Vietnam Purple Heart recipient, my cousins both Marine Corps officers. I have some very close Navy SEAL connections as well.
I was in a peacetime army. It was like something out of a Le Carre novel: studying the habits of your enemy. It was very exciting. It's interesting living life as a civilian, then on Friday night you're parachuting into a foreign country.
I was raised in the paratroopers.
I have jumped out of airplanes but I was not technically a paratrooper. I was an infantryman and a night fighter, anti-terrorist.
My father was a very contradictory man. I mean, most environmentalists in America in the 1950s - of which there were hardly any - were not... paratroopers. But my father was in the 82nd Airborne, it was just like that.
I jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.
