A foreign paratrooper died Thursday during an 82nd Airborne Division jump into Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg, N.C., an Army spokesman confirmed.
The parachuting death is under investigation, said 82nd spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Buccino. He declined to release the name of the soldier or his nationality. Buccino said that 336 jumpers had scheduled to jump during the exercise; 108 jumped before the fatality halted the operation.
The incident has not triggered a training stand-down. A few days later, on Sunday morning, more than 750 paratroopers form the 82nd's 1st Brigade Combat Team jumped into Fort Polk, Louisiana, for a simulated Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation. The 1st BCT, since December, has served as the land component for the nation's Global Response Force, a unit designed to quickly deploy anywhere in the world to assist in any crisis where military is needed.
