The Reason For All Those Jumps I Logged Here

Master Parachutist Badge, nonsubdued version

Although I've had orders in hand for the Master Parachutist Badge for over a week, I elected not to put them on until Tuesday. As the long-standing tradition goes, the wings aren't valid until they're properly tagged (a.k.a., "bloodwings").

In the interests of staying out of trouble, I have no footage of the wings being tagged (unlike some Marine force recon guys who stupidly enough, brought a video camera to when they winged some of their own).

The reaction I get from some folks is "that's unbelievably barbaric" when I explain the tradition of bloodwings. Being unable to Google a good explanation of it, here goes:

It's been long standing tradition in the paratrooper community to properly initiate a paratrooper to his next higher rating (whether it be basic for a jump school graduate, or senior or master for a jumpmaster, depending on experience) by pounding the badge into the individual being honored with the backings removed so that the pins stuck in the chest. Where it comes from, I have no idea. A similar tradition exists for rank, where an enlisted soldier being promoted to the next grade gets his new stripes properly tagged.

In today's politically correct (and in some cases more egalitarian) military, we have turned our back on some of the traditions that set us apart because it highlighted a certain standard of excellence. Bloodwings are no longer permissible in most airborne units by the letter of the law (command policy). That it happens with remarkable regularity is an indicator (I hesitate to use the much more loaded word "tribute") of the type of people we want (and for the most part, have) in those units.

Commanders have turned a blind eye to it, because they see bloodwinging (and in the same vein, bloodranking) as a bonding ritual that, to use the letter of a different regulation, is not "prejudicial to good order and discipline." I speak from a biased viewpoint; I've been in organizations where the focus was to break things and kill people as a collateral activity of the job. I really don't have any desire to go to a noncombat unit or noncombat headquarters; my professional attitudes are so aligned to being around killers that the few times I've been in non-combat arms environments, I've felt intensely uncomfortable, in that some of the people who were in these units had lost their way, or focus.

Besides, you want the guy to hit you hard. That way you don't feel the pins going in. It the ones who lightly push the badge that really make you feel it going in.