Fly with Eagles
Incendiary Imbeciles #7
“Pride comes before the fall.” Hubris can be something that some wildland fire workers have opportunities to experience every day and yet some will never learn.
Fly with eagles, fall like a Fool Hen.
National Geographic
We thought we were miss-spotted, doomed to tree-up. Treeing-up can be very humiliating. It invites chortles of disapproval from your buddies and bequeaths a reputation of being a “tree frog.” First, there will be an announcement from the spotter on the plane over the radio for the whole world to know. Putatively that's done for safety. But when you're hanging in a tree it seems like it's done for humiliation. Next, there will be your crew partners on the ground that will have an air of superiority if they didn't tree-up. They will offer some unhelpful suggestions of how a good shoot handler could have avoided treeing up. And they will seem to suggest that the tree-up should be a good learning experience that they have never needed. Once back at the jump base there will be all sorts of withering comments from the loft crew. The ‘chute inspectors will exaggerate how much you damaged the parachute. Worse, the sewing crew repairing the ‘chute will concoct some drama queen performance of how it evolved into an impossibly cruel repair job. No doubt, tongue lashings will frequently bust out of the loft manager who will harangue about damage to valuable government property. And surely the base manager would find ways to bring it up every day at the morning assembly.
Yet, can these lambastings be seen as the uniting bonds of group cohesion? Is it a sign that your tribe sees you and cares about you and your safety? Do they signal that they stay united with you and they will always remain your comrades during dangerous endeavors? Naw, it’s just humiliation, especially for tree-ups! Whoa! I gotta pay attention to trying to steer this parachute into the jump spot.
My partner jumped first and I see his parachute embedded in a tree on the edge of the jump spot. Fighting the wind, I saw a gap in the tree canopy through which I wanted to slip into the spot. A broken top tree formed this gap. At the apex, a stout branch thrust perfectly horizontal from the trunk. I hoped to freely pass over it, but instead my boots clinched that branch like eagle talons! Roosting there briefly, I felt my parachute lose air, flapping down like billowing laundry in a breeze. Then I began to tumble down the tree. I wasn’t too worried because I thought my parachute would surely snag on some of the branches and arrest my fall. Then I could repel down the tree with my letdown rope that nested in my leg pocket. However, treeing-up remains always humiliating even if circumstances demand it.
As I fell with increasing speed, branches bashed and battered my back and side. I felt like a pinball, pinged and ponged, bounced and careened off branches as I fell. Oof-d’oh-ugh-cripes! Then, to my horror, I realized my parachute did not snàg any branches. I feared grave injury due to the great height I fell!
Miraculously, my landing felt springy and soft! I discovered that I swayed on top of an enormous pile of spongy branches! My body had sheared off branches as I fell and made a lovely trampoline pile for me to land in. Thoroughly uninjured, I sighed with relief. Then my parachute slithered down the tree and piled on top of me. It cleared any snags on broken branches and folded nicely into a neat bundle. Dumbly happy as a Fool Hen, I could claim “no tree-up!”
