At 2,000 feet you're only about twice the height of the Bank of America building in Midtown. Look down and you can make out the clothes people are wearing.
Skydiving from that height isn't exactly prudent. But John Souders wants to keep his jumps shallow: It takes less time to go up and less time to come down, and he's got to cram 100 jumps into 11 hours of daylight.
That's his plan, anyway. This Thanksgiving weekend Souders, 40, of Marietta, a salesman with Oracle and a skydiving enthusiast, wants to make those jumps to offer his own kind of gratitude to veteran Mike Spann, who died 10 years ago Friday, and to raise money for Spann's children.
Spann, an Alabama native, was a paramilitary officer with the CIA when he became the first U.S. casualty in the war in Afghanistan. He was killed during a prisoner riot at the Mazari Sharif compound in the northern part of the country.
Souders didn't know Spann, but the story of his death always stuck with him. "The next morning, November 26, his death was announced to the world," Souders wrote on his website, www.johns-events.org. "It was my birthday, and the news of his death has remained on my heart each year on that day."
Souders feels a debt to this American who gave his life for his country, he said. The fact that he's demonstrating his gratitude by jumping out of an airplane? Well, yes, he concedes, there is a touch of danger involved. (At that altitude, there's no room for Plan B; a body in freefall would encounter the ground in about 15 seconds.)
But, even so, Souders said, it's not as dangerous as going to war. "There is a little risk in this," he said, "but there were a lot more unknowns he [Spann] ran into when he went to Afghanistan."
Souders plans to accomplish his feat at Skydive Alabama, a facility in Cullman, Ala., near Spann's hometown of Winfield. His small audience will include Spann's father, Johnny Spann, 63.
The elder Spann said he has no interest in skydiving -- "that's way down on my bucket list" -- but he wants to support Souders.
"I appreciate people like him," he said. "I appreciate their loyalty to the country, and their loyalty to the people fighting for their country."
The younger Spann served as a Marine for eight years before joining the CIA and working in intelligence during the war on terror. He left behind three children when he died; the youngest was a six-month-old boy. Only a few weeks later the mother of the two older children died of cancer, and they were raised by their grandparents.
The Spann family has created a web site for those who want to donate to a trust fund for the children, www.honormikespann.org.
Souders has already tackled the challenge of jumping out of an airplane multiple times in a single day. Last year he managed 42 jumps in one day to raise money for breast cancer research.
This weekend's efforts will require a powerful single engine prop plane, a hardy pilot, three fuel fillups, five parachutes, three packers and a few breaks for Gatorade.
"Realistically, we can do 12 an hour," said Souders, who has neither a wife nor children to worry about him. He said clear day would be preferable, but clouds won't stop him. "At 2,000 feet you're usually underneath the cloud cover anyway."
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