Special Forces Operator Completed 2900 Freefall Jumps Including Training Foreign Militaries

What was said

"That was my last parachute jump. At that point I had right at 2,900 parachute jumps. That's not including static lines. I trained the crown prince of Thailand who is now the king of Thailand. I still got the little letter he gave me. It says if he ever comes to his country to stop and see him. We trained everybody. The Israelis, Lebanese, Indonesians. Indonesia wanted to train their whole army because everybody has jump wings in Indonesia. Navy jump wings, marine jump wings, army jump wings, air force jump wings."

Over his career, Trantanella accumulated approximately 2,900 freefall parachute jumps (not including static line jumps) and trained elite operators from multiple nations including the current King of Thailand when he was crown prince. He spent five weeks training the entire Indonesian military in square parachute techniques after that country expelled Soviet advisors. His training missions included Israeli and Lebanese officers as jump partners, demonstrating the scope of U.S. Special Forces influence in allied nations during the Cold War.