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To: LindyBill who wrote (15809)	11/11/2003 2:56:16 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 793755

I am always suspicious when I read about an Airborne drop of this size. Why not go in by chopper? Everybody wants to get a "combat jump." Several reasons for that. The distances from staging areas and refuel points to Landing zones can be vast in Afghan. Therefore more suitable to fixed wing based airborne OPS. Some of the Afghan mountains are not reachable by our birds. We have some HIND choppers in inventory for that terrain...but not many. Relatively safe helicopter landing zones may leave the troops with miles of rough cross-country terrain to walk over to get to the objective. Parachute assaults can be done on top of an objective. The Russians lost bazillions of birds and troops to missiles in that area...Some of the missiles are likely still in the AO and we know it. HALO parachute (high altitude low opening) insertions of recon and other teams have been working well in remote areas. A night parachute infil from high altitude is usually not seen or heard. The final reason???...A tiny bronze star on a set of jump wings (connoting a combat jump) is a beautiful thing.