The Army's Premier Parachute Team Looks Forward To The New Season

By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford

The U.S. Army Parachute Demonstration Team, The Golden Knights, is coming off a “great 2003 season” and getting ready for new challenges in 2004. Their new commanding officer, LtCol. Paul McNamara says his two demonstration teams and three competition teams have their eyes firmly set on the mission, which will keep them as the winningest sports team in the history of the Department of Defense, and actively carrying the recruiting message to tens of thousands of potential soldiers across the country.

The team will also be celebrating their 45th Anniversary, and in May will be opening their new headquarters at Fort Bragg.

As the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels announced their schedules on Monday morning, the ‘Knights are still working out details and scheduling, and will have their list squared up by mid-January.

As part of their “high profile” recruiting efforts, you can also expect to see the Golden Knights making more “Celebrity Jumps”. Most recently, Lance Bass from ‘N Sync, Miss Teen U.S.A. and Gunny R. Lee Ermey, from the History Channels “Mail Call” made tandem jumps. You can expect to see the Golden Knights featured on “Mail Call” sometime in January.

LtCol McNamara has about 100 people and five aircraft under his command at Fort Bragg, NC. The familiar Fairchild C-31 transports, a pair of Otters and a single Porter are now on the flight line, with the Porter being chopped to Special Operations Command after the first of the year, and a C-23 Sherpa coming to the teams on an interim basis. The team is already looking at replacement aircraft for the C-31’s, and are taking a close look at the C-27, which is now in limited Air Force service.

The teams competitive units remain at the top of their game, taking a Silver Medal for 2nd place in the four-way competition at the World Skydiving Championships in France this year, as well as three Bronze Medals for women on the team. LtCol McNamara has expectations of additional hardware being collected when the competition moves to Croatia in 2004.

As for other plans in ’04, you will find the Knights in Houston in June, for a charity fundraiser, and Minute Maid field as their DZ, and then in College Station, Texas, on June 13th, when they will have a former Naval Aviator jumping with them on his 80th birthday. That would be former President George H.W. Bush, who promises this will be his final jump. He has jumped on at least four other occasions, for his birthday, or to remember his Navy shipmates who were lost during WWII.

McNamara and four of his staff are attending the 2003 ICAS show in Dallas, and he continues to scout the “other” parachute teams, now being fielded by the Navy’s “Leapfrogs” the Army’s Special Operations Command “Red Daggers” and the Special Operations Command “Joint Parachute Team” (No catchy nickname, yet). He also talks candidly how recruiting for the Golden Knights has become more difficult. The sport parachuting teams at Army bases world-wide have simply gone away, or with the extended operational tempo…weekend jumping is something that’s delayed until it’s forgotten.

“We’re working to help revitalize the base sport teams around the country, and we will be recruiting at the College Nationals, bringing people in as E-4’s for a three or four year tour with the Golden Knights.

Oh, to be 21 again, with a thousand jumps!

FMI: www.airshows.org, www.usarec.army.mil/hq/GoldenKnights