Photography by John Michael

There are several teams among the unit that focus on different aspects of parachuting. The most visible are the BLACK & GOLD demonstration teams that criss-cross the United States spending 42 weekends (and during the week as I later found out) parachuting and drop into airshows, sports stadiums and well, other places that they’ve been requested to appear.

There are also the competition teams that include freefall formation, style accuracy and canopy piloting. The tandem team allows VIPs who have never parachuted to experience and enjoy the safe “jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.” – something which I’ll probably get the opportunity to also experience.

I was truly excited about the opportunity, since it’s not often that milestones such as this are reached, yet here I was taking in a bit of history among one of the US Army’s elite units. The weather was iffy, in fact it rained, rained hard… and much of the activity was moved indoors among the floor to ceiling display cases of the numerous awards, medals, plaques, and more that the team has garnered over the years. That was somewhat bittersweet, since there would be no parachute jump today. I was a bit disappointed, especially since their Operations Officer was going out of his way to shuttle me over to the airplane where the part of the team was originating.

They say that every dark rain cloud has a silver lining… as all the photographers & media people were posted on one side of the auditorium where the ceremony was held, again I was offered a true courtesy and allowed to move to the other side of the room just several feet from the podium where all the action was happening… Not only did I get a great vantage point to capture some great photos, I also got to meet the Secretary of the Army, Honorable Pete Geren.

The auditorium was standing room only and LTC Tony Dill, Commander of the Golden Knights orchestrated a fantastic ceremony highlighted by remembering two of the Golden Knights – revealed busts of two alumni — Medal of Honor recipient Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Novosel, who had been chief pilot for the Golden Knights and Sgt. 1st Class Pedro A. Munoz, who had given his life in the defense of the US.

Also the unveiling of the 50th Anniversary Golden Knights SSI and commemorating words by the Secretary of the Army, the President of the Golden Knights Association and finally the ceremonial swords cutting into the cakes for this milestone.

The weather kept us indoors and I explored maintaining my “Ask Big Questions…” so I was exposed to many things while there. One of which was a demonstration by MSG Hendricks accompanied by SGT Woosley of the intricacies of parachutes and how they’re packed (the Golden Knights pack their own!) It was truly amazing to see all that appeared on the floor, neatly disappear back into the pack

Afterwards, I’d learned the style accuracy competition team has as part of their challenge – to land on a disk and spike a small 3 centimeter dot in the center with the spike on the heel of their shoe. Since it was done so often, the judges “reduced” the dot to TWO centimeters.

Later in the day, I went to the “vertical wind tunnel” off post and watched as the formation team practiced their maneuvers in what was a chamber where they were able to fly like eagles.