My call-up papers arrived at seventeen — and the day the final whistle blew, the train didn’t just leave the station; it carried me into the man I had to become.
With a broken foot and no plan to be a paratrooper, I still crossed the line — and walked into 1 Parachute Battalion through iron gates that changed my life.
Two weeks of Parabat hell — marbles, skaapdra, first-blood boxing, a 90km night march, and a rope climb at dawn — and somehow you rise with wings still shining.