About the below, trusting women paratroopers with my life every jump, that shit ain’t metaphorical at all.

Paratroopers inspect each other’s chutes, lines, and rigs. There were many women in my unit. Most often, it’d be a woman named Dubs I served with jumping with me, and we’d inspect each other’s equipment before an exercise. Our lives were literally in each other’s hands.

Not a metaphor. That’s just the reality.