1SG (R) Roger Vickers

1SG (R) Roger Vickers sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

Nominate a hero · 155 in the archive

The goat. When I was a young sergeant learning to be a jumpmaster, he was the one I looked up to. What right looks like.

He won the first Jumpmaster of the Year. There is a story. He had left the school. Black hat six or eight years. Scout platoon sergeant in 3-504. They asked him to enter. He said no. It was not fair. Hugh Shelton was the division commander. Later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. About three days later the two-star wanted him at division. Vickers told him no again. Shelton had started the competition because of him. You are going to enter it and you are going to win it. He entered. He won.

He almost got out. Charlie Company, 2-504. Mike Steele asked what it would take to stay. If I can be a black hat at jumpmaster school. Steele could not give him the hat. He got him the interview. First E5 black hat the 82nd Jumpmaster School ever had. He made E6 not long after.

Green ramp. A trailer. A book. Nobody talked to him. Jerome Holmes did. Vietnam. E6. They called him Spider-Man. He came out and said give me your opening spiel. This is what you say. This is how you slap the helmet. The day Vickers put the hat on, the rest of them hugged him like a brother.

About eight years in that hat. Then first sergeant of the school. First one they had. E7P. Shelton made Advanced Airborne School NCOIC a first sergeant billet and put him there. Ninety-seven, ninety-eight. The C-17 almost put the airborne out of business. A jumper from 1-504 wrapped up. They stopped jumping it. The 141s were going away. Not enough 130s. Steele and Shelton sent him to Edwards. Two years. Six-degree deck angle. Twenty-foot static line. They still jump it. He came home with 782 static line jumps.

Born 1960. Fitzgerald, Georgia. Family still there. 11 Bravo. One year in Korea. The rest in the 82nd. Korea in eighty-nine and ninety. Home a few days. Then Saudi with the 504. He still lives at Bragg. He hears the 17s at night. He got his fill. If the Army called him back he would go to the 504 and be a first sergeant.

He is married to a French national. They take World War II veterans back to Normandy. This year they took six. Two of them first wave at Utah Beach. A C-47 pilot who dropped the 82nd on D-Day. They put that man back in the seat. About a hundred years old. Not a dry eye on that aircraft.

He had great mentors. Ronald Blackmore. Jerome Holmes. Enrique Rodriguez. He will skip a name and he hopes they forgive him. He was blessed. ADVANCED AIRBORNE SCHOOL ATTENTION. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.