US Mortar 60mm, M2

The words "light role" are one of those pieces of military newspeak. Historically "light infantry" were fit athletic soldiers - "voltigeur= Vaulter" or "jaeger=hunter." The modern reality is heavily laden porters plodding across hillsides carrying 50kg.

 

"Infantry": Olde English word meaning MULE!

 

Light infantry in the American Army means you travel around in LPCs (leather personnel carriers) and humped everything with you. Of course being a paratrooper means that we had the luxury of being thrown out of an airplane with all our gear strapped to us. Upon contact with the ground, we made the conversion from paratrooper to light infantry, just like that. Yay!

 

And sometimes you converted to lighter infantry while still in the air!
Bobby, you remember the terror of the night-time combat equipment jump? For those that haven't jumped you rig your ruck or other big loads so they ride in front right under your reserve parachute. You are supposed to release your lowering line when you're about 100 feet from the deck and the equipment drops to the end of the 15 foot line so that paratrooper and equipment hit the ground separately. This helps avoid breaking the paratrooper, particularly their legs. At night it's hard to judge how high you are, and the darker the night the harder it is to judge, therefore SOME paratroopers fearing riding their equipment in, release their lowering lines hundreds of feet up. Invariably, there is always that guy or guys that improperly rig their equipment and instead of dropping 15 feet and being suspended by the line (actually flat tubular webbing) it free falls until it hits the deck or some poor paratrooper that landed earlier. 100+ pound rucks raining down from hundreds of feet up is a bad way to start your day.

In this video you can see the guy releasing his lowering line releasing his equipment (to which camera was attached):

 

Yep, that's about how I remembered it. Lost some gear a couple of times while in descent. Usually this happens during a collision with another jumper, but sheet happens you know.

I've made night jumps in Alaska during the summer when it was bright as noon, and day jumps in the winter when it was black as the ace of spades. Usually the signal to drop the ruck was when you'd hear the screams and cussing of fellow paratroopers at the front of the stick burning in with their gear. Ahh, the good ole days.