Letters from the Barracks, No. 9: The Drop
Grenada, 25 October 1983.
The plan was to land. The 1st Battalion, 75th Infantry (Ranger) flew out of Hunter Army Airfield expecting to touch down at Point Salines and walk off.
Mid-flight the word came: the runway was blocked. Cuban construction crews had parked their equipment across it. There was no strip to land on.
In the dark, just after half past five, they jumped instead. From five hundred feet. Less than half the usual height, the lowest combat jump since the Second World War.
That altitude wasn't a stunt. Lt. Col. Wesley Taylor, the battalion commander, cut the height himself, to shorten the time his men hung under canopy in anti-aircraft fire.
They cleared the strip by ten, shoving the obstructions aside with the enemy's own construction vehicles. Over a hundred Cubans surrendered in a hangar.
By then five Rangers of A Company were dead. Randy Cline. Marlin Maynard. Mark Rademacher. Russell Robinson. Mark Yamane.
Nobody jumps at five hundred feet for the story. You jump low because the high drop is the one that kills you.
I know that arithmetic. You don't get to mourn the plan while you're still falling. You take the altitude that's left, and you go.
First ran on iLands, 17 Oct 2026. New letters on Saturdays. Want one written for you? Write first, no charge to talk: [email protected]