TactiSMART 074: Airborne, Airborne Have You Heard? Cover Your 6 When you Jump from the Bird!
An Ounce of Padding Prevents a Lifetime of Injury
As you hopefully already know, I hurt my lower back doing a rear PLF at the end of an U.S. ARMY Airborne operation causing me to design the flexible 1-quart canteen:
www.combatreform.org/flexibleonequartcanteens.htm
My back still hurts after all these years.
However, unlike football, hockey players, snowboarders, mountain bikers, the Airborne I'm-better-than-you, badge people refuse to properly pad themselves--damning the parachute operation to a mission planner's 10% injury rate that frankly can be reduced to almost zero--albeit at the expense of snobtalk--which is too damn bad because America needs THE BEST AIRBORNE--3D maneuver possible since it's a vital of WARFARE means--not an ego badge.
Camel-Bak hydration bladders can replace 1 quart canteens altogether on your fighting load with flexible 1 quart ones in your existence load aka rucksack lowered on a line before landing--IF the Airborne authorizes what "Special" people are already doing.
www.combatreform.org/drink.htm
www.combatreform.org/hptll.htm
Since the Airborne is full of snobs who use Luddite stupidity to enshrine unsafe practices and make the badge artificially difficult-to-obtain by bureaucratic obstacles like school slot unavailability--NOT that non-Airborne qualified Soldiers are lesser being "pussies"; who somehow can't jump--it's no surprise that hard canteens are still causing lower back injuries that could be prevented by PLAN A hydration bladders aka no canteens or PLAN B soft canteens, so we must argue now for a PLAN C: a tail bone pad like football/hockey players, snowboarders and mountain bikers use.
The hockey or football "girdle" (ugggh...exactly the wrong label for snob-egotists to accept) can be worn now UNDERneath your Multicam or Scorpion OCP Army Combat Uniform (ACU) whose buzz words should be MACU or SACU--if accuracy & honesty were driving Armyspeak--which they are not. Wearing internal padding that prevents a Paratrooper from being TBATE-injured and a loss of combat power should be enough justification and we should be already doing it like we do with external knee/elbow pads...but it is HOT; a heat sink for men already retaining too much body heat wearing abrasion-resistant MACU/SACUs, body armor, pouches etc. In fact, the Army should have khaki shorts to go along with Pink & Green Khaki shirts to create a "Hot Weather, Garrison Uniform" (HWGU).
There already exists a COTS tailbone pad that can be worn inside or outside clothing: the Demon United D30 Azzpadz:
https://demon-united.com/products/azzpadz-d30-tailbone-protector
The problem is that it's BLACK.
An old apocryphal story tells the tale of a new parachute maker showing it to Army decision makers using test photos. At the end of the presentation, the Army officials rejected it by pointing out "it's ORANGE".
Not far from the truth I've experienced pushing forward gear improvements since 1981...so 1-800-OBVIOUS, my virtue signal is earned. Not surprisingly, my patience for myriad bureaucratic excuses to not make things better is at an end. ASAP we're going to obtain a D30 Azzpadz and sew a fucking (vulgarity necessary to point out this is not too-hard-to-do) piece of Multicam or Scorpion over it so it maintains the superb wet or dry area, camouflage effect of everything else the Paratrooper wears.
SO WE DID IT:
The externally-worn pad does not trap heat like it would if internally worn. After the Mass Tactical parachute jump, the "MazzTacPaz" can be removed at the 1st opportunity--placed in the T-11 parachute kit bag and dropped off at the collection point or inside a high-viz trash bag for others to clean-up the DZ into an ALZ or your rucksack.
However, the U.S. Army's biggest users are thousands of vehicle drivers, vehicle commanders, and vehicle drivers. Literally, all of our Army vehicles have Assigned Drivers and Commanders. They lead convoys, tactical movements, and vehicular patrols. They are driving, monitoring radios and computers, and Manning optics and sensors. They are sitting from 8-24 hours per day. Azzpadz also prevents hip, coccyx, and pelvis injuries.
Paratroopers/Soldiers need not wait like no initiative, welfare recipients for BIG ARMY to buy/supply tailbone pads in MACU or SACU colors to them but can wear them as-is BLACK underneath their pants and compensate for the added heat by drinking lots of water they should be doing anyway. The best practice of external wear requires sewing a piece of MACU or SACU on top which off-post sewing places can do.
1000D Multicam Fabric
The fight will be with the Airborne Luddite, anti-safety snobs to authorize the external wear of the MazzTacPaz since it'll touch the T-11 or other parachute harness and must not disrupt anything during the JMPI process. Expect the snobs to lie and claim the external tailbone pad is intolerably disruptive in some absurd nit-picking gotya! game antics. The Russian VDV and CHICOM Airbornes don't play such stupid snob games--they have real battles and wars they want to win using every "inch" of military advantage they can obtain akin to Al Pacino's coach in Vietnam combat veteran, Oliver Stone's "On Any Given Sunday".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzugjI0G2vM
https://tubitv.com/movies/588934/any-given-sunday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Z3wPlg58E
Thus, the biggest obstacle is the current Age of Despair, doesn't-want-to-do-anything generation multiplied by Airborne Luddite "Blood on the Risers" anti-safety snobbery. This probably requires a forehead pad for the frustration-created, head-banging sure to follow!
John 3:16
Semper Airborne!
James Bond is REAL.
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