Parachute training returns to Misawa

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Parachute training returns to Misawa
By Vince Little, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, February 9, 2009

Parachutes opened recently in the skies above Misawa Air Base for the first time in 15 years.

It was part of combined training the Air Force hopes to conduct monthly at the airfield in northern Japan.

The jumps involved two survival, evasion, resistance and escape — or SERE — specialists based at Misawa and a SERE instructor and pararescueman from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa. They all bailed out of a C-130 Hercules flown by a crew from Yokota Air Base’s 36th Airlift Squadron.

Staff Sgt. Benjamin Thomas, a SERE specialist with Misawa’s 35th Operations Support Squadron, said jumps are required every quarter in his career field, and they help prepare them for certain contingency deployments.

"We teach emergency parachute training for the pilots and aircrews," he said. "We use the parachutes they’re going to use, so this helps us teach them how to do it safely. It also helps test all the emergency parachutes and equipment … and validates the procedures we’ve been setting up."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60574