A story

[DexterBase 0]

The breeze is blowing on my face. It feels good, but it’s not what I want to be feeling right now. Right now sitting on the edge of this 420 foot cliff in Washington State, a moderate breeze is a bad thing. As I was hiking to the top I was hoping to find calm wind so I can step off the edge and make a BASE jump. Winds at the exit point indicate one thing: there are turbulent winds below that could cause my parachute to open toward the cliff and smash my body against the cold stone. Staring across the valley waiting for the wind to calm down and watching the fog drifting slowly by, my thoughts also drift off to another place and another time.

.............................................

The year is 1998. It’s just after midnight and my legs are dangling over the side of a bridge girder 250 feet above the gravel lot below. I’m watching Dan Osman wrap static line around a metal beam. He’s building an anchor point to attach a rope to. I want to ask questions about what he’s doing but for some reason I just sit and watch his hands move. They move with a quick precision. No effort is wasted and no mistakes are made. The fingers make familiar movements clipping caribiners and tying knots as they’ve done many times before. Before long the anchor is assembled and the rope is in place. He looks over at where I’m sitting and smiles. I attempt to smile back but my lips won’t make the right shape. Fear. All that my mind can solidly grasp is fear. Hands tremble in my lap and the voice that comes from my mouth is shaky and unsure.

“Are you ready?” he asks me. I nod back since I don’t want to try to talk. What if he hears the fear in my voice, will he think I’m weak?

We walk together on the catwalk and approach the spot we’ll be jumping from. As I pull the climbing harness into place I fumble the buckle, my hands are really shaking now. He moves closer and finishes tying the knot in the 1” webbing that will connect the chest harness to the climbing harness. After the rope is properly attached to me, he gives me a final check and again smiles. I step onto a girder and carefully move one foot to the next one, legs spanning a gap with nothing but air below.
I take several deep breaths in hopes of calming myself, but deep down, I know better. No amount of deep breathing is going to tame the wild fear that has completely filled my world. My entire consciousness is fear. I’m so scared right now. I’m afraid that the fall will be scary. I’m afraid that the rope might break. I’m afraid that my body might slam into the ground so far below and my life will be forever extinguished.

I close my eyes and step into the darkness.

...........................................

Looking out over the valley I can see another bank of fog moving up the canyon, this time, in the opposite direction of the last one. The wind is definitely doing funny things down there. On my extended hand I can feel wind coming straight up
the wall. Not a good sign. That means that somewhere down there, the wind is hitting the cliff straight on. Not good for jumping. A familiar sensation begins to build in my core. Dread, impending doom, call it what you like. It’s the feeling that all practitioners of dangerous sports are intimately familiar with. It’s what we feel when we know we’re on dangerous ground and know we’re about to do something with potentially deadly results. Do we do it for fun? Is this my idea of fun, or is it something else, something deeper?

............................................

2004, Ramadi, Iraq. I’m standing next to a humvee waiting for a general to finish a meeting so we can escort him to another meeting in another city. We talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter. Food in the chow hall, the new female lieutenant working in the command center, cigarettes, whatever people talk about when they’re passing the time and pretending not to be scared. In the distance we hear several muffled pops that we’ve heard hundreds of times before. It’s the distinct sound of mortars being fired. We all run for cover, some of us caught in the open hit the ground knowing there’s no time to run. There are a few explosions a thousand meters away. One of the Marines walking by, a kid with orange hair, laughs at us for taking cover. My friend Joseph tells him to shut up.

“Why are you hiding? Those didn’t even land close.” The stranger asks, laughing.

“You know that now,” Joseph yells back, “Wait until they do come in on top of you and you’re standing up in the open.” He shakes his head and looks at me. I shake my head back. New guys. They’ll learn. They’ll learn or they’ll die.

Several more muffled pops. We take cover again. This time we hear something big cutting through the air. It vibrates as it flies over our heads and impacts with a ground shaking boom 40 meters away. The other mortars launched with it explode all around us.

“Stay down!” someone yells. More pops. Shit, more mortars. How many are they going to launch? The rounds come in again shaking the ground and raining dirt and gravel on our backs.

“Doc! Doc get over here we have wounded.” I grab my medical bag and run toward the voices pausing momentarily as several more mortars explode close by. I run as fast as my legs will carry me to a Marine laying face down in the dust. There’s blood everywhere. I roll him over onto his back to assess his wounds. It’s the orange haired kid. No way, his wounds are far too severe and he’s already gone. I move onto someone I can help.

After we get the wounded loaded onto helicopters we resume our conversations by the humvee and smoke cigarettes. After a while the General walks up, dirt on his chest. Obviously the General isn’t too good to hit the dirt when the mortars come in.

............................................

Rain drops. At first there’s only a couple here and there but they’re slowly gaining strength. What am I doing? Why do I repeatedly find myself in situations that can kill me? While I hope that the conditions will improve allowing me to jump with some degree of safety, there’s a part of me that wants to see the conditions get worse, taking the decision out of my hands. You would think that I’d have it out of my system by now. You’d think that what I saw in Iraq would have cured my thirst for danger. You’d think so… wouldn’t you?

In spite of all that, after over a decade of rock climbing, almost seven years of BASE jumping, and a summer in combat, you’d think I’d have it out of my system by now. Instead here I sit, alone on a cliff in the rain, waiting to jump off.

I’m not as reckless as I once was with this sport. There was a time several years ago when the current situation and the internal struggle wouldn’t be happening. I’d have accepted less ideal conditions and just jumped, caring less about the outcome. I’ve made some jumps in the past that probably should have killed me, but those were in darker days where I had much less to live for. Maybe it’s the girl I have waiting for me at home, nervous that I’m out making a jump that she couldn’t join me on. Maybe I feel that since I’ve made it this far I should take it easy and exercise more caution.

The rain is pouring down steadily now. I’m geared up and I look down the cliff. I look all around me at the world that goes unnoticed by so many. I close my eyes and feel the raindrops hitting my face. Maybe I should back off and walk down. Maybe I should take the guaranteed outcome and go home. I know I won’t live forever, but I’m sure happy to be alive right now. I wipe the water out of my short hair and pull my helmet on. A smart man would pack up and leave. Maybe I should too. You’d think so… wouldn’t you?

[KMonster 0]

Thanks for sharing such a personal story with the community. You write very eloquently. I feel like I'm right there with you, but observing pensively from the background.

I'm sure on some level or another, everyone in this forum can relate. It's comforting that we're not as alone as we feel sometimes.

Katie.

[unclecharlie109 0]

Awesome post Dexter.

A great article to read together with my morning coffee.

J

[JohnDoe 0]

Dexter
That was powerful! Made me stop, reflect, and appreciate a lot of things... and understand others. Havent done that in awhile.
Thanks!
JohnDoe

[Kinaa 0]

Mortars are not fun, at all. They were my greatest fear, during the war here, not the land mines, air attack, or thanks, but mortars. Serbs used them a lot, and most our casultys (and most Croatian civil casultys) were also from mortar attacks). During the final operations, that ended war in Croatia, 7 of us was caught by 82mm mortar fire. We were in forest, without any cover, just lying on the ground behind one 40 cm thick tree. They fired 128 (actually 130, but two did not explode) granades, in less than 20 minutes. The most distance granade fell around 50 meters from us, and most of it were exploding around and above us. Branches were falling, trees were cracking, we were under shover of srapnels, literally. The ones that was carried by explosion in the air, was falling with leaves, like some hot, but without force, rain. I really thought that I (we) will die. Really. I remember myself thinking how stupid was I because I thought that school was problem (I was 19 then), and how some things quickly become small and meaningless. But it was our lucky day I guess. We had just one wounded, he was hit by some small (smaller that rise grain) shrapnel in the hand. I believed that I used all my "credit" that I had, that day, and that I will never tempt my luck again..
Yeah right.

Stay safe,

I.P.

[blitzkrieg 0]

great story Dexter. it's nice to find something once in a while that's worth reading.

[Treejumps 0]

Very nice writing. You could definitely write shorts.

Tree

[QuickDraw 0]

Great story Dexter, life & death and the choices that mortal people make.
Makes the day-to-day decisions that I make seem almost insignificant.

Ever thought of writing a book ?

-- Hope you don't die. --

I'm fucking winning

[Faber 0]

what makes your storry even better is that you actualy survived all that.
I hope you one day take your time writing down your adventures as you really good did here.I´ll buy a copyyou write werry well
i truly look forwad to meet you this summer
and you too K-monster

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Quote

A familiar sensation begins to build in my core. Dread, impending doom, call it what you like. It’s the feeling that all practitioners of dangerous sports are intimately familiar with. It’s what we feel when we know we’re on dangerous ground and know we’re about to do something with potentially deadly results. Do we do it for fun? Is this my idea of fun, or is it something else, something deeper?

Thanks for the stories Chad. You know what you said up here above is one of the deeper feelings we adventure nuts need to fully explorer. What is it that makes us do what we do? Is it that we enjoy the actual act of the dangerous activities we partake in? (I think in most cases the answer is yes) or is it that we enjoy a post-activity enjoyment of what we just did? (once again I think the answer is yes). We're all different and we all look to take different levels of enjoyment out of the things we do. But one still wonders why we (as BASE jumpers and some of us also skydive and even Ground Launch) why we are willing to risk it all for a few moments of pleasure. Then again if the pleasures extend to the post-activity enjoyment, then we can savor the moment even longer (sometimes days, weeks, months and years after the activity was performed).

I don't know? I just wonder why the three things I enjoy most in this world (besides making love to a great woman) BASE jumping, Swooping and Ground Launching are all not what you would call "safe" activities. Try convincing a potential whuffo mate that you won't kill yourself this weekend (even though you know there is a chance that it could happen).

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[truckerbase 0]

Wonderful, Chad. Thanks. Watch out, Nic!

[audacium 0]

That was deeply moving and will leave a lasting impression on me. Thank you for sharing this with us.

All the best, Eduard.

--
Eduard

[freakydiver 0]

Funny I never thought of it like that - but I actually hate the moments up to the point where I huck myself off of a cornice whilst skiing or snowboarding. I don't deal well with the height issue. For some reason, I still love hucking and landing a big jump on my sticks. I think it is the way I feel after - the feeling of, wow I survived. It is savorable as you put it - for years in some cases for me. I can still remember some of the bigger hucks I've done and how proud I felt to pull them off... Granted this is nothing comapred to what you folks pull off - it is still cool to look at it the way you put it...

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[TomAiello 25]

Thank you.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Thijs 0]

Thanks Dexter. Great story.

[eb66to77 0]

That was a good read man. I was wondering if there were some more people out there with BASE and Combat stories.

[SBCmac 0]

A pretty bad ass post DexterBASE ...

I always thought it was funny how I swore to be a lazy civilian after I got out of the service... Not to mention, I told myself that I would never work or play out in the elements again... The first job that I got out of the service was a laborer job for a construction company in the middle of winter time. Then somehow down the road, I became a BASE jumper, someone who not only lives in the elements but seeks out the most challenging environments in which to play in.

I told my friend once that I thought it was funny how I/BASE jumpers relax from a stressful work week. BASE jumpers at the end of the week say to themselves, “damn I’m glad it’s Friday, time to go play”… And so what do we do to relax, we climb up some big ass mountain, find our way to exit point and jump. The funny part is that, while at exit point, we probably experience more stress than you do in a year’s worth of work related stress. So I just think that it’s funny that we relax by putting ourselves in the most challenging situations and we love it… The mental journeys that we go through as BASE jumpers are just amazing …

Thanks for your post DexterBASE… You made my day
Michael

BATMAN - (A.K.A. SBCmac ...)

[laird 0]

Im curious how many people that post here are or used to be corpsman? Just curious.

"HIGAF" Honestly I Give A F*^%

[SkyDaemon 0]

USMC Devil Dog here.
Semper Fi!

(well, almost... there's a policy (or two) that didn't quite click with me.)

find / -name jumpers -print; cat jumpers $USER > manifest; cd /dev/airplane; more altitude; make jump; cd /pub; more beer;

[AJEvans 0]

I am truly fortunate to be able to call you my friend and mentor. That was a great story and very well written. The best part is it is all true, and really evokes those familliar feelings that I have had, to near reality they are described so well.

Thankyou for sharing that.

Because It's The Cheese And I'm The Macaroni

[leroydb 0]

great story

Leroy


..I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio...

[JOY 0]

Great story. No matter how long you do this sport, there will always be a rush at exit. That's why we all got into it. I still get that beautiful fear right before exit that makes it all worthwhile.
Rick Harrison
BASE 38

[email protected]