Airborne training is "safe" in the sense that they thoroughly teach you all the steps and do lots of ground training before getting in a plane. But by no means does that mean your body won't get wrecked by doing jumps.

The parachutes are designed for combat: their goal isn't a soft landing, it's to get you out of the sky as fast as possible.

I was stationed in Alaska. Wintertime jumps were a toss-up in terms of landing in a big pile of snow — or solid ice.