Description
Mr Gratto remembers jumping from a plane and explains some of the things you may not realize about it.
James Gratto
James Gratto was born in 1934 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and as a child was raised in Pictou, Nova Scotia. His father worked on the Canadian National Railway. His mother passed away when he was still very young. One day during school he and some of his friends went down to the recruitment truck during lunch time to sign up for the Canadian Forces. After getting the call to serve, Jim decided to quite school and join up. He went to the Royal Canadian School of Signals in Kingston, Ontario where he took ten weeks of basic training. He then completed his trades courses as a radio operator and cryptographer. Mr. Gratto went to the No. I Airborne Signals Squadron in Kingston, Ontario. Upon completion of trades training, Mr. Gratto served with the United Nations in Congo for seven months. Mr. Gratto had a military career of 31 years. While serving in the military, Mr. Gratto married his wife Shirley from Fredericton, NB and together they raised a family who would become very familiar with the military way of life residing in many military bases throughout Canada. After retirement, Mr. Gratto and his family settled in Kingston, Ontario.
Transcript
The first jump is very easy cause you don’t know what’s going on. The second one is the hardest one cause you know that the straps are going to come up and bang you on the side of your helmet, bang you on the side of your ear. You know you’re going to get that little jerk, you know, you know what I mean? So the first time you’re not waiting for that, right, cause you don’t know what’s going to happen. The second time you’re waiting for that jerk and when you look up you check your canopy and it’s open. Great, gee, thanks, another one and you look all around. It’s just like a bird floating through the air. And when you land, you’re landing at anywhere from 10, 15, 20 miles an hour probably, you know. But a lot of people don’t realize that say at, say at okay at 3,000 feet the air is going one way. You get down to two and it’s going the opposite way. You know, the wind is blowing the opposite way so you’re going one way then all of a sudden you see yourself going the other way. That’s fascinating to be able to do that then you have to adjust your chutes, you know, guide yourself down and not to hit anything on the way down like land on a fence or like a cow. I hit a cow once. Well, there was a herd of cattle in the corner on this field and, of course, there’s this one cow, one cow that’s gotta be out a few hundred yards from where it is and I’m coming down and I’m looking at it and this stupid thing is looking at ya. Watching you come down, wouldn’t move. You holler at it, can’t hear you but you know in the last hundred feet or so