he was just a rookie trooper, and he surely shook with fright he was just a rookie trooper, and he surely shook with fright. he checked all his equipment and made sure his 'chute was tight; they hooked him up and stood him in the mighty engines roar, but he ain't gonna jump no more-- chorus gory, gory, what a helluva way to die-rpt 3 time and he ain't gonna jump no more! ' is everybody happy?' said the sgt looking up. our hero bravely answered 'yes', and then they stood him up; he jumped into the slipstream and he twisted 20 times, and he ain't gonna jump no more. he counted loud, he counted long, he waited for the shock; he felt the wind, he felt the air, he felt the awful drop; he pulled the lines, the silk came down and wrapped around his legs and he ------ the days he lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind, he thought about the girl at home the one he left behind; he thought about the medics and he wondered what they'd find -- the lines all wrapped around his neck, the 'd' rings cracked his dome, the risers wrapped themselves in knots and cracked his skinny bones, the canopy became his shroud as he hurtled to the ground -- the ambulance was on the ground, the jeeps were running wild, the medics clapped their hands with glee, rolled up their sleeves and smiled, for it had been a week or two since last a 'chute had failed -- he hit the ground, the sound was 'splat', the blood was spurting high, his pals were overheard to say 'what a pretty way to die!' they wrapped him up still in his chute, in his paratrooper boots -- there was blood upon the risers, there was blood upon the chute; intestines were a-dangling from his paratrooper boots; and there he lay like jelly in the welter of his gore ----- this song is sung by paratroopers in all english speaking countries, in ww2, in korea, in vietnam; since paratroopers fought in the falklands warit would be safe to assume that they sang this song as they broke through the argentinian lines at goose green, and as they landed 15 kilometers from baghdad to interdict iraqi troos heading for the saudi and kuwait fronts. fragments of this song were frequently recorded --english and aussie paras use 'lift webs' rather than risers. I recorded darky edwards singing this song -he learned it from wwii vets during the korean war, and like myself, sang it in vietnam. I also recorded hank snow singing this song.