The Heroes of Green Ramp

"Those are my brothers.... They're in trouble and we need to help them."

—Capt. Daniel A. Godfrey

The twenty-third of March 1994 was a fitting day for an airborne jump. The skies were clear, with good visibility; the temperature was in the mid-sixties; and the winds were moderate, 4 to 6 knots. The XVIII Airborne Corps, stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, had scheduled two parachute missions, one in the late afternoon and another in the evening, using aircraft on the adjacent Pope Air Force Base (see Map). Required to undergo prejump exercises within twenty-four hours of taking off, Army paratroopers had assembled at Pope Air Force Base for training in the early afternoon. Units on the day's manifest were the 82d Airborne Division's 504th Infantry, 505th Infantry, and 782d Support Battalion (Main), as well as the XVIII Airborne Corps' 525th Military Intelligence Brigade and 1 59th Aviation Group (Combat) (Airborne).

The paratroopers had gathered on the staging area known as Green Ramp, [1] located west of the southern end of Pope's main runway. Green Ramp contained the jumpmaster school buildings; the jumpers assembly building, referred to as the "pax shed"; a series of CONEX containers; two Air Force buildings; trailers; a snack bar; and the jumpmaster school training

Fort Bragg and Vicinity

area, where mock doors and C-130 and C-141 mock aircraft were located in a parallel line. The paratroopers used the mock-ups, each positioned on a 3-foot-high platform, for rehearsing aircraft exits, as well as the smaller platforms interspersed among the mock-ups for practicing parachute landing falls. A pair of C-141 Starlifters, aircraft not usually based at Pope but designated for Fort Bragg's airborne exercises, sat on the tarmac about 75 feet from the mock doors. Vehicles lined the driveway near the pax shed and adjacent to the jumpmaster school.