Airborne operations were an essential component of the Allied invasion. And since D-Day, the US Army has stood ready to drop airborne forces anywhere in the world at any time.
The US Army Golden Knights are America’s most proficient parachutists. Led at the time of this recording by Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel Andy Moffit and Command Sergeant Major Adam Breeding, the Golden Knights set the example for airborne insertion onto any drop zone.
LTC Moffit and CSM Breeding joined Fran Racioppi from atop the Normandy Resistance Monument in Saint Marie Dumont to discuss just what it means to be Airborne, both in 1944 and today. They shared what it takes to join the Golden Knights, how they maintain standards and why they are always competing for the perfect jump; especially when the eyes of the world are watching.
Check out our conversation from the birthplace of modern Special Forces and home to one of the largest airborne drops in history; then head over to our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform to catch all our coverage from the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.
Follow the Jedburgh Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media and make sure to tune into our first documentary, Unknown Heroes: Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, the story of Operation Jedburgh available now only on YouTube.
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Colonel Moffit and Sergeant Major Breeding, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast. We’re here in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. We’re not that far from Utah Beach. Behind us sits, I would say, one of the most important monuments here in Normandy, France, the Normandy Resistance Monument, honoring our legacy back to the Jedburghs, Operation Jedburgh, three-man teams parachute, Behind Enemy Lines, one American, one British, and one French. What’s your mission? It was to conduct sabotage and subversion operations to prevent the Germans from reinforcing the beaches at Normandy and win at all costs.
It started in these fields the night before D-Day, June 5th, 1944. During the ceremony, as General Ferguson and a number of others like the mayor of the town, everybody was speaking above us. They kept flying these formations of C-130s. We had C-47s back then. Some of them were painted like the old C-47s. Right at the end, when the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, with the national anthem playing for both the United States and France, and the Ballad of the Green Beret, out jumps the Army Golden Knights.
It was awesome.
It was almost like it was scripted. Welcome.
Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.
I know we’ve been talking for a while. We saw you guys back at the Army-Navy game. You guys did a phenomenal job jumping into my hometown, Gillette Stadium. It’s the greatest dynasty on planet Earth right there. They have all sports, I would argue. That was pretty cool to see. We’ve had the opportunity to become a part of the Army family, the USARAC or US Army Recruiting Command, and the Marketing and Engagement Brigade, which was formerly run by Colonel Stephen Battle, who was on from Wodapalooza. He’s brought us into that family. Sitting down with you has been at the top of that list for a while.
Thank you for having us. I remember when we were first talking at Army-Navy and got together briefly at the game, which turned out to be an incredible game. We took home the commander’s trophy that year and have been talking about linking up for a while. I’m happy about the way it turned out, getting together here on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
Let’s talk about the Golden Knights. The mission of the Golden Knights is, in a lot of ways, to drive some awareness as to who we are and what we’re doing. In your words, what is the mission of the Golden Knights?
We talked a little bit about history being here for D-Day. The Golden Knights go back to 1959 when General Joseph Stilwell brought together about fifteen paratroopers from different organizations, the 101st, 82nd, and 18th Airborne Corps. They formed what was then called the Strategic Air Parachute Command. It was at that time to compete with the Soviet Union in the new sport of skydiving.
There’s a lot of folks who jumped into these fields who might argue with you that it was new in 1959.
A lot of parachute technology was being developed at that time. There was still a lot of R&D going on and crossover technology like there has been in medicine between military and civilian. That’s where it started for the Golden Knights. They took on their moniker of the Golden Knights about two years later in 1961 named after the gold medals they had received and from Knights from Conquering the Skies. That’s where it began again with fifteen paratroopers.
We’re about a 100-person organization and 50 of those are our jumpers. The mission has morphed through the years like the Marketing and Engagement Brigade. Our mission is to connect America’s people to her Army. Unless you have a family member who was a veteran or you grew up around a military installation, a lot of people are disconnected from their services besides what you may see in the movies. That’s where we and our sister battalions come in and perform in professional sporting events and air shows all over the country, interacting with the public, and sharing opportunities for service. That’s why we exist.
Talk about your careers. Sergeant Major, you’ve got huge responsibility here, not only logistically. There’s a logistic piece, personnel piece, and competition piece of this thing. You can talk for a second about the different teams that live within the Golden Knights. Before you get to that, where were you before? Why come into the Golden Knights?
I joined the Army right out of high school. I was eighteen years old. I went into Special Operations to kick my career off. I jumped around there for about twelve years or so. I enjoyed that but I knew the Army had more to offer me. I wanted to get out and see a little bit more of what was out there in the 82nd. From there, I got selected for sergeant major and came out of the academy.
I did an officer major job and the Army was like, “You’re the guy that’s qualified to be the sergeant major of the Golden Knights.” I said, “Are you talking about a guy behind me? I don’t think I’m quite that guy,” but it brought me here. I was extremely fortunate to have a commander like Colonel Moffit who’s extremely knowledgeable and experienced in reference to the sport of skydiving. He was on the military academy skydiving team.
He has a very extensive background in the sport. It allowed me to come in, understand, learn, and grow at my own pace with the team. I didn’t have to take it all in at one time, so to speak. I was able to learn about pace. One of the biggest things coming in was I had to check my ego at the door. As a sergeant major and a senior enlisted member of the Army, you’re expected to be the subject matter expert in everything in your organization. I was coming into an organization where I was not that person. That was a huge growth step for me to do that.
Colonel Moffit helped facilitate that growth for me. If I had a different commander, I probably would not have been as successful as I have been while I was here but I’m extremely fortunate for him and to hit your point about the team. We’re comprised of what we consider six sections. We have two demonstration teams that do the things that Colonel Moffit had talked about like jump into sporting events, do air shows across the country, and connect America’s people to the Army.
We have a competition section, both in four-way formation skydiving and canopy piloting. They have two separate missions. Our canopy piloting competes in three events, speed, zone accuracy, and distance. They participate in cross country as well. We have our tandem team, which is probably our second biggest workhorse I’d say behind the demo teams who get out and interact with those centers of influence across the country. It’s your educators and administrators who get the message out there to say that the Army is the service of choice and show them what you can and can’t do.
We would not be able to do anything if it was not for our aviation section, coating us all over the country, flying us here, flying us there, and turning the loops out of the Laurinburg drop zone. I was out there jumping on Thursday and we did twenty lifts in half a day. It was incredible. They put in so much hard work to make sure that we’re on target, on time, and ready to go whenever we call them. It’s a phenomenal organization. I tell them every day that they never cease to amaze me with their level of professionalism and proficiency in what they do. They’re incredible individuals.
We’ve thought about the soft truths and lies. Soft truth number five is the support element that lives there. It’s cool to see the guys jumping out and parachuting down. The amount of work that goes to make it over that drop zone and push somebody out is the unsung hero of the whole organization. You don’t come from a bad background yourself.
Not too bad. I can’t complain. I started enlisted and worked in an electronics maintenance battalion on Fort Bragg in my first duty station. In the late ‘90s, I was an airborne radio repair man. I had an interest in going out and doing challenging things like how to pack it into SF at the time. I was trying to figure out what path I wanted to go. I had a family member recommend, “Have you considered going to West Point?” I said, “Absolutely not.” I could not cut it at a place like that, nor would I probably even fit in.
The seed was planted and I started thinking about it. I ended up putting in a packet and went to the prep school at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey at that time. I met my wife who is also a prepster. That’s where I got into skydiving, Star Major mentioned, on the West Point Parachute Team. It’s where that got started. I was doing style and accuracy back then, which was popular in the skydiving community. It was funny, looking at pictures on the walls at the Golden Knight Headquarters. Nobody does style anymore. It’s more popular here in Europe than it is in the States.
What’s style? I was a static line guy on a mountain team. I don’t go underwater or that high up. I got three points of contact.
This was the pre-GoPro era. To judge style, you had one of these telescopic lenses from the ground. It was about 6 feet long and they’d point it up at the sky. You wear this spandex suit of any color of the rainbow. You get in this little tuck position. You got your knees up to your chin. Your arms are out like little wings. You have to do a left turn, right turn, back loop, right turn, left turn, and back loop as many times as you can until you run out of time or altitude. You get down to the bottom and they would judge you.
That’s how I started skydiving. I was trying to hit the tuffet every day. They have a little 16-centimeter electronic pad on this inflatable air tuffet. You’d have to land on that and get scored. We’d fly down the heels of our shoes to try to have that pinpoint landing. Most of that stuff is gone from the sport, although you still do see it in Europe. I spent some time in the infantry. I started in Fort Lewis and then later, I went to SF and grew up in the 7th group.
I had the opportunity when the command list came out. The Golden Knights was one of the options to compete for. I had been away from the sport for a long time. It was very attractive to get to work in an organization with such high-performing, high-motivated people, and highly skilled teams in SF. I was so fortunate to work in such a unit with cohesion and camaraderie, which is the goal of Knights as much history as they do behind them. I enjoyed it.
What do you look for in the team?
For Sergeant Major and I, culture is king and everything. It’s what drives our performance and how we treat each other. What we look for in somebody who’s coming from the team is on the technical side, talking bare-bones prerequisites, you have to have at least 100 jumps. That could be military or civilian but they have to be free fall jumps.
Beyond that, Sergeant Major scours the packets, looking for a top-quality soldier. They’ve got a good background and are a good team player. It’s a lot of the same qualities that the selection committee looks for and SFAS able to play well with others. They can think well and have low behavioral risk. They’re not going to get in trouble. We’ve seen guys all over the world. In most cases, Sergeant Major and I are not with them. They’re very much in the public eye. They got to be able to speak in public and be ambassadors for the Army. We’ve got great guys and gals that do an excellent job of that.
To elaborate a little bit more on what he was saying, we’re looking for that person who’s going to go above and beyond in the SF Special Operations community. You don’t have to push that person through the mission. It’s someone who’s going to charge through it, go out, get things done, and better themselves because they want to be better for the whole, not just for themselves. That comes through looking for that top-tier soldier and the quality that we want to bring to the team.
Our cadre for selection that we select, the colonel and I handpicked them to assess that incoming group. They do a phenomenal job of looking at individuals and saying, “They will or will not be successful.” It comes down to also how teachable you are. A lot of people we have come through the selection are senior enlisted members of the service. Can they be a follower again? That is a struggle for some people. Going back to what I was saying about checking your ego, some people don’t have the ability to do that. We find the ones that we can and can come in, enhance the capabilities of the team, and take us to that next level.
It’s interesting. A hundred jumps as a baseline in a unit is a ton of jumps. You’re a senior experienced free-fallist but you come here as the new guy. You’re a rookie. You got 100 jumps. It’s great. We had that. I did one-quarter of that. That’s a fact. You do have to check that ego and say, “Here I am. I probably have a lot to learn.” You’re doing something at a much more advanced level than people have done before. There’s also a tremendous amount of autonomy in your role and on the team. Talk for a minute about the op tempo or the amount of events that you’re doing in any given week, month, or year, and how you operate very decentralized.
Captain Pollock, our operations officer/headquarters commander, was talking about this with the Liberty jump team. The team themselves, probably the demo probably most of all, are on the road 220-plus days a year. Colonel and I try to get out to maybe half, probably under, to try and support the team. We try to support everybody, demo, competition, tandem, and all of it, to make sure that we’re out there with all of them. We have the remainder of the staff that tries to get out there. Captain Pollock and our first sergeant get out there probably about a quarter of that time.
The op tempo is significantly high. We are fortunate in the fact that we do have the autonomy to select the things we do. We are directed to do certain things but Colonel Moffit has granted a lot of leniency in assessing based on metrics if this show is better than that show or vice versa and things like that. It is very fast-paced. You have to be able to handle that.
We talked about this thing. Colonel Moffit does a phenomenal job of looking at past metrics and how things have panned out to say, “Yeah, that’s one we want to continue doing. We recommend we don’t support that.” If he’s at a crossroads, and I’m not real sure, he’ll send up the data and his assessment to hire and let them make that decision.
We are granted a lot of autonomy. Probably I first learned the Army policy of command and control. I wasn’t sure but this is a working example of how command and control operates and is successful. Colonel Moffit and the operations team do a great job of ensuring that our team is getting where we need to to have the most influence and impact for USAREC and the Army.
What’s the best part about being on the team?
I’d say the best part is the camaraderie of the organization, being able to look around on any given day, wanting to pinch yourself, and saying looking back, “How the heck did I get here and get to do this great job?” We meet so many amazing people around the country. I traveled to a lot of places but not across our country and met the people we meet everywhere like Chicago, Seattle, Miami, New York, Kansas City, and LA. We’re crisscrossing the country every month. The people are so hospitable and warm. That’s the people we meet and the job we get to do to represent the Army.
What does it mean to be here? You guys have a tremendous schedule while you’re here. This is about your only afternoon where you’re not double and triple booked all week. When we think about Normandy or this region, the 82nd, the 101st, and the Jedburghs, we’re fighting soldiers from the sky. As you were coming in, we were singing the Ballad of the Green Beret here at the ceremony. This is where Airborne operations began.
We were talking about this before we started, about the history of what took place here. If you look back on a lot of the unit histories that we’re commemorating, we’re from the operations that happened in this short time frame at Market Garden at Normandy when they made their name. It’s been very humbling. I visited Normandy for the first time in 2020. A buddy’s dad was stationed in Brussels at SHAPE. We were a couple of poor cadet candidates so we were using his house as a base of operations and came over here.
That was the first time in my life I had ever experienced the level of patriotism that I witnessed in the town of Bayou, one of the first villages to get liberated during World War II. Despite it being a couple of generations removed, the gratitude that I experienced helped me understand what they felt and what it was like. It’s truly an honor to be able to be included in this opportunity to celebrate those events and what those that came before us did.
What hit me is the level of patriotism and pride that they have over here. I look across the street and I see Winston over here in his full get-up. He’s killing that as a replica World War II soldier. You see that in every town you go to around here. It’s phenomenal, the way they carry that heritage with them and how proud they are. You talk to them and they’re so excited to tell you about their grandpa, great-grandpa, or somebody in their family who participated in this. It moves you. You can’t help but be moved and then be able to be part of it and say, “I was there for the D-Day 80th. It blows my mind. I’ve been trying to come to see this thing my whole career and I finally get to come. I’m so thankful. I’m going to take all of this in as best I can.”
It’s just phenomenal to see the way towns and people are proud to carry their heritage with them.
We’ve watched the convoy. Vehicles are coming by us.
Antique jeeps and a deuce and a half.
We have a Dodge WC-51 that sits in my garage. We break it out a few times a year. Jen’s over here looking at me because it’s leaking oil all over the place. The garage stinks like an old 1944 vehicle but it was. To come here and see them driving around, I’m super jealous because I wish that I was driving in mine over here but we break it out at the Veterans Day Parade in New York City. We’ve taken it to a couple of events. It’s amazing to see here that they haven’t forgotten. We’re only a generation past, those who partook in what occurred here and they remember. The very first flag we saw when we came to Normandy was an American flag. You can go to towns in the US and there was a flag. As a population and a society, we have to remember that.
I had to tell Colonel Moffit, we saw these people dressed up and reenacting. They thought they were soldiers who were tasked like that was their duty to come over here and dress up like that. Those are local kids. You don’t see that patriotism back home and it hurts a little bit. It reminds you what we fight for and why we do the things we do. It fills you back in with that purpose again. It’s great.
As you look forward, the future of the Golden Knights has been around for quite a number of years since 1959. What’s next for the organization?
We think the future’s bright. We’ve taken big strides over the last couple of years to modernize some things that we’re doing with the team. You figure at any given air show with the demonstration that’s performed there, a lot of those maneuvers have been performed for the past several years. We’ve reached out across the skydiving community, brought in a lot of disciplines and maneuvers that are conducted elsewhere, and brought some of those same capabilities onto the team.
Over the past year, conducting wing suiting maneuvers, you’ll probably see some of that here with smoke, which gives it a great visual effect for some of the drop flags. We live in a digital world. Our audience is inundated with being able to see things from any part of the world at any given time. It gives us a great visual effect to be able to incorporate 3D photography, which is fairly new, being able to incorporate into virtual reality demonstrations like base jumping. Also, being able to put our audience say a young student in the seat in the eyes of a Golden Knight, jumping off of the New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia, or off the top of a mountain in Moab, Utah.
We live in a digital world now, so our audience is inundated with being able to see things from any part of the world at any given time.
Those are a few of the things that have been brought on within the last couple of years. The competition team worked hard to set up a partnership with iFLY. We have something called Army Body Flight Experience where we give people the opportunity to fly in an indoor capacity in a wind tunnel. We put the equipment on them, throw them in the tunnel, and within a couple hours have them be able to fly their bodies. It’s pretty enjoyable.
What we got to do after this is set a date. Come on down and see you, guys.
Let’s do it.
I want to do the wind tunnel but I never wanted to do this when I was in the 10th group. I’ll get strapped to one of you guys and jump out 100%. I told Jesse we’d bring her too because I wasn’t going to be able to do that without her.
That sounds great.
That’s going to be a lot of fun. Test question. You live in a world where you have to have habits and do things precisely the same way every time. There’s a lot of risk in what you guys are doing. I was talking to your medic. I said, “Do you see a lot of injuries?” She said, “No, not really but when I do, it’s pretty ugly.” It means that you’ve got to be focused and have strong habits. We’re talking about the Jedburghs and the statue behind us. I say the Jedburghs had to be able to do three things every day as their core foundational tasks.
They had to be able to shoot, move, and communicate. They parachuted out of those C-47s starting the night of June 5th and clandestinely then infiltrated into towns like this to link up with the French resistance forces, which had to be their focus. It couldn’t be, “How do I use my radio? How do I employ my weapon? How do I move through the darkness?” If you do those things with precision, you focus on challenging tasks. What are the three things that you each do every day to set the conditions for success in your world?
For me, one of the biggest things I do is ensure that we have the right personnel and that starts with our selection, bringing the right people onto the team. I’m very fortunate to come into a team that has a very solid foundation of leaders who are ready to develop the next generation of Golden Knights. Our team leaders do a phenomenal job of planning the training that they deem necessary and getting that approved by myself and the commander to go forward to prepare for that upcoming show season.
They’re so experienced that the intricacies that they put into their training don’t even make us question their ability. You look at a training plan that’s so in-depth and detailed. You’re hitting everything. There might be 1 or 2 very small things in this but they got the big parts of it. They do a great job of passing that down and preparing the next guy to become that trainer for the next and so on. It starts there.
I’m helping him by assessing those training plans to ensure that we’re getting so by the time they get to him, he puts his officer tweaks on him and we’re good to go. Finally, for me, it’s the care of the soldiers and the team as a whole, making sure that they have everything they need to be successful and that their families are taken care of. We’re incorporating all of that into one team.
Colonel Moffit said, “I’ve never been in a group but I don’t think I’ve ever been in an organization that is this close or tied into one another, their significant others, and their families. Everybody’s kids know everybody else’s kids and wives.” It’s phenomenal. The way they get along and come together. Whether it’s for a family day or a time of crisis or need, everybody steps up from the youngest up to the most senior member of the team to ensure that everybody’s getting what they need when they need it and doesn’t have to worry about a thing. It’s pretty good.
At the individual level on a daily basis, what keeps me going is making sure that every day I’m getting in some spiritual food, mental food, and physical food. For me, that’s getting in the word of God every morning and getting my mind right before I start the day. “What are the priorities going to be? How am I going to maintain composure despite stress and everything else and be who I need to be for the organization and my family?”
With mental food, I’m making sure I try to maintain a habit of reading and learning and be a lifelong learner. I know you are too in love with history. Most of the books I read are recommendations from other people that I bump into. I get books in the mail from my soldier’s parents and stuff that I’ll meet on the road. I got a couple in the mail before we came out here. We’re reading on the plane. For physical food, Sergeant Major and I are getting into a holistic health and fitness gym. We got a couple of great coaches that beat us up every single week. They are old bodies trying to stay in shape but they get after us.
At the organizational level, it’s building trust. There’s been lots of leaders who talk about, “Trust is our number one currency.” That’s true for any high-performing organization. You touched on the risk a little bit. Habits that allow us to do high-risk and high-visibility operations every single day with a healthy safety record are rehearsals and repetition. It’s amazing. I’m impressed by our team leaders and team members every single day.
Trust is our number one currency. That’s true for any high-performing organization.
There’s a lot that goes in behind the scenes anytime you see a demonstration. For a demonstrator to land on the X or target at the last note of the national anthem, they have to know exactly what second to exit the aircraft for all of that to come into place perfectly. They hold themselves to a very high standard. They’re doing what we call dirt dives before every single job, which is an on-the-ground visualization rehearsal that they’re about to do in the air.
We employ some cognitive performance coaches who help us with visualization like any high-performing athlete. There’s been a lot of psychology studies out there about throwing 100 free throws and visualizing 100 free throws. They end up performing pretty similarly. We found that visualization, especially in competition, is very important for what we do to be able to be in the zone when it’s go time in front of half a million people at the Indy 500 or similar events.
Do you get nervous?
Always. Every time. Most of the guys on the team will tell you that nervousness is all self-induced. It’s not a fear of injury or anything. It’s all performance anxiety, wanting to do a good job for the people that are watching you that came out and bought a ticket to see you.
It’s that healthy level of fear though that keeps them focused. I’ve heard a couple of guys say, “If I ever get an aircraft one day and I don’t have that, then it’s probably time for me to hang it up.” A lot of guys will tell you too, “We jump from thousands of feet. A good portion of the team is afraid of heights.
That’s funny.
It’s pretty hilarious to know that. It’s good stuff.
You guys both went to ranger school. You go back to when you’re crossing the beam in the water corner. You go up the stairs. That thing is shaking. I was the guy where the cadre is like, “Come on, let’s go.” You see other guys run across. I’m like, “Hell no I’m going to go back.” You got guys every once in a while getting down on all fours, crawling out to get to that step.
They’re terrified.
You climb a mountain, ski some nasty pitch, or jump out of an airplane.
We see a static line and I’m like, “This is low. We’re close to these tree trunks.” It was 800 feet up. There’s no room for error.
You got a busy week. I appreciate everything you’re doing.
It was great talking to you, Fran.
It’s been a lot of fun watching you as we’ve gotten to know you and the team and be a part of that community. You’re doing some great work. The professionalism shows and I’ve told you that before. There are a lot of folks out there who think they can jump out of airplanes and make it look good but there’s a big difference between good and great. With what you guys have built here and the standard you uphold, it resonates. You don’t have to be some master parachutist to look up from the sky and see. There’s a difference in what those guys are doing. Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much. I want to say thank you for what you’re doing with the channel and the community and for keeping our history, those that come before us and what they’ve done. We have short memories so I appreciate you keeping that at the forefront, representing the community, and being a high performer yourself. Thank you very much.
Let’s see what we get in an airplane.
It sounds good.
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