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Were all 82nd Division troops jump qualified?


kfields
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When the 82nd Division was deployed during the Vietnam War, were all members jump qualified? What about replacements that came into the unit in-theater?

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kfields- Not sure if this is helpful to your question, but search the "82nd Airborne Division" on wikipedia under the Vietnam era section. Quite interesting as to what happened.  Keep in mind  only  the 3rd Brigade deployed to Vietnam, not the entire division.  This will give you insight as to some of the manning issues faced during the deployment.  I do know they lost 214 troopers during deployment. I  knew personnel who were assigned to the 173Abn in Vietnam that were not jump qualified, so it would not surprise me to find that there were some non-jumpers in the 82nd replacement pool. We had a guy in my platoon in B/1/504 in 1971 who had not been to jump school, and did not jump. SKIP

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Okay, thanks guys. 

I wanted to be very respectful with a guy I know who served with the 82nd during the war but I was curious. 

He's a good guy so I'm glad to hear that being non-jump qualified is actually plausible. 

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Lots of talks around on the forum on the Vietnam War era 3rd Brigade 82nd Airborne Division, and the 101st Airborne Division after 1967, the 101 was taken off Jump Status too shorty after it arrived In Country, it became a Airmobile Division, very few EMs were Jump Qualified, like LRRPS an the later 75th Rangers, and the Pathfinders in the 101's Aviation Group, all the rest were not.

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As an interesting side note- we just got in a groping from an Air Force soldier (airman?) that was serving with the 82nd as a forward observer/comm unit, and he had to be jump qualified, so we now have his AF fatigues and jungle jacket with jump wings and and 82nd patch.

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