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It was March 23, 1951. I'd been on duty in Korea about seven months. We were scheduled to make a combat jump, my second one since arriving, over the Munsan-Ni Valley.

Each man on the 187th Airborne Regimental combat team sat listening to the drone of our C-119. We were ready to take the plunge from 800 feet up and knew that if anything went wrong we were seconds away from an abrupt death. I was First Sergeant of Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, and the last man in line to jump.

At about 9 a. m., the jumpmaster gave his routine commands: "Stand up" (we got up and faced the door).

"Hook up" (we snapped our fastener onto the cable running down the aisle of the plane).

"Sound off for equipment check" (each man checked the man's parachute in front of him and called out "#1 okay," #2 okay … ").

"Stand in the door" (the first jumper spun into place in front of the door while each man behind tried to stay as close to the man in front of him as possible).

Then when the green light turned on, the command was given, "Go!" One by one, each jumper leaped from the plane, trying to stay as close to the guy in front of him as possible. Our plane was traveling at 120 mph and every second lost between jumpers meant about 176 feet of separation between landing sites and comrades.

Finally my turn came. When I spun into place in front of the door, knees flexed to propel myself out, my rifle strapped to my left leg caught on an insert in the doorframe. I tried to jiggle it loose with my left hand, but it didn't budge.

"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!" I cried.

After a few seconds, I reached over with my right hand to dislodge the rifle, not knowing that this might be a fatal mistake. As I reached over, my right arm crossed over the static line, a cable attached to my parachute and running down the center of the plane (normally your arm is supposed to be under this line). Not recognizing my mistake, I jumped from the plane into the open air.

The static line was about 120 feet long, which would mean it takes about a full second for the parachute to extend and billow, giving the jumper what we called an "opening shock." When I received the opening shock, the static line under my arm jerked my body into a horizontal position, sending me into a spin. The folds of my parachute wrapped around me—I was caught in what we called the deadly "cigarette roll."

My emergency chute was strapped to my chest, but the folds of the first parachute were wrapped around the reserve chute rendering it useless. I tried to untangle the folds, but the wind blew them back around me. I knew it would take only about five seconds for me, plummeting out of control, to reach the ground. I was helpless.

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