Jon finally jumped in Alaska

Random internet picture of Army guys jumping - just imagine one of them as Jon

Snow - what Jon landed in - a few feet of it.

Jon called last night to talk for a few seconds to let me know that after being in Alaska for 5 months now and attempting to jump each month he finally succeeded!! The jumps have been cancelled because of weather and equipment issues - but not last nights. Last night he jumped with a heavy ruck sack (I think 60 lbs but can't remember) and a few feet of snow to land in. He said when he landed he was drug at least 100 meters in the snow and was very thankful for his heavy duty gloves - the same ones we laughed at when we saw them and thought he would never need. Then he had to get off the phone and start the trek to the plane to get back to base.

They look something like the above picture

I guess when you are jumping in single digits with double digits worth of snow you want anything that will keep your body warm!

One funny story about Jon's cancelled jumps. As chaplain you get to pray over the jump and one of the guys came up to Jon at a ceremony we were at and told him that his prayers were effective but he might want to change them. You see he had prayed on each jump flight that no one would get hurt. No one was able to get hurt since they didn't jump out of the plane. So he told the guy next time he would pray that every person would jump out of the plane in the air and land without getting hurt. I don't know if he did this since we literally only talked for about 45 seconds but I do know Jon wasn't hurt and they did jump so something changed!