Paratroopers Jump at Return From Panama

More than 2,000 paratroopers returning from duty in the Panama invasion jumped from planes today in a spectacular and triumphant homecoming cheered by family and friends.

A roar erupted from several thousand spectators as the parachutes popped open and the soldiers floated 800 feet to the ground from 20 C-141 transport planes promptly at 8 a.m.

The 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers had jumped into Panama during the Dec. 20 invasion that resulted in the arrest of Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega on federal drug charges.

The soldiers, clad in battle gear and with black-and-brown camouflage paint on their faces, gathered their parachutes after landing on Sicily Drop Zone, a huge field on the sprawling Ft. Bragg base.

Lt. Gen. Carl Stiner, who led the 82nd Airborne in the invasion, was the first to jump.

Asked why the soldiers returned home by jumping out of planes instead of walking off them, base spokesman Capt. Lewis Boone said: “Their primary means of deployment is jumping. They will jump whenever possible--over here, over there, anywhere.”

Crowds were brought to the drop zone before dawn for the welcoming. Base officials estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 spectators watched the return.

Staff Sgt. Vicki Zamora, 27, one of two women soldiers listed on the division’s manifest, worked as an imagery analyst in Panama and was stationed in a building that was under mortar fire the day before she arrived.

She was greeted by her husband, Gus Zamora, 34, and their three children. While her children pulled at her uniform and told what they got for Christmas, she said she felt good about leaving the children because “they were in good hands being with their daddy.”