on him and one of them reportedly exclaimed “You’ll be so scared, you won’t remember your own name!” To which he replied, according to Major Gerard M. In any event, while out carousing after the movie, a certain Private by the name of Aubrey Eberhardt was acting tough about the jump that was to happen the next day, making out that it wasn’t a big deal and he wasn’t nervous about it. What is known though was that it was a film featuring a character representing the Apache, Geronimo so it’s assumed it was that film as the dates more or less line up. The movie they saw is reported to have been the 1939 film, Geronimo, though that isn’t known for sure. On the night before the group was set to make their first jump, they all got together and went out for a night on the town, including going to see a movie and generally getting as drunk as possible afterward at a bar. One of the first units to attempt to group jump out of a plane was located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Army was testing out the feasibility of having platoons of soldiers parachute from air planes. Today I found out where the tradition of yelling “Geronimo” when jumping out of a plane came from.
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