By Anderson Coleman/reporter
A TCC student who jump-started his life shared his military experiences with a SE Campus audience Nov. 15.
“All in all, I had no real solid prospect — no real goal in life,” Nick Koezeff said, but a parachute jump changed all that.
During high school in California, Koezeff’s mother made a deal with him. If he graduated, she would pay for a tangent jump, one in which novice and instructor share a single parachute.
“Being in a plane above 13,000 feet, there’s nothing like watching that door to a whole other realm open up,” he said, describing his initial jump. “It’s kind of like theater and you have that fourth wall, but it’s imaginary. In a plane, that fourth wall vanishes, and there’s nothing between you and that jump. The experience was literally world-changing.”
It certainly changed Koezeff’s world. Shortly after the jump, he went to an Army recruiting station.
“I told them I wanted to jump out of planes, and the recruiter told me to sign right here,” Koezeff said. “Ultimately, I knew I had no drive. I now know I had something to strive for when joining the military, and I was given a gift.”
During his training, he went through static line jumping, in which a cord attached to the airplane automatically deploys the parachute.
Koezeff described static line jumping as a “choice maker” because the parachutist has to know the precise moment and angle to jump.
“The concepts I learned at the 82nd Airborne have reshaped my life,” he said. “I’ve served two tours and been to Iraq twice, and without the military, I wouldn’t be married today.”
Koezeff closed by sharing his hopes for the future.
“I want to be in a country that doesn’t shy away from a threat, and I don’t want to back away from a bad economy,” he said. “The military gave me the opportunity to change myself to something I’m proud of.
“I’m proud to be in a school that I’m actively a part of and proud of wearing an American flag with a ribbon underneath it. I was ultimately, through the grace of God, going to be a success.”
