Will I get in trouble if I recently graduated airborne school and will be sent to my unit, but I no longer want to be airborne?

I would like to offer you a couple more perspectives. First, your maturity in how you communicate this will influence the decision of your leadership. You're a Soldier now, that's your life. And as you have said, you are still capable of serving your country. Communicate to your leadership that you understand and accept the responsibilities of being an Airborne Soldier, but you now realize that you have a problem in fulfilling your duties. Accepting consequences of our failures is noble, but it should always be done alongside the request for help. This is strength, not weakness. Anyone who says otherwise and strictly ascribes to the age-old motto of "come to me with solutions, not problems" has not matured very far as a leader, and may actually be full of crap.

This problem of yours is fear and you're not sure you can overcome it, but you are sure that you still want to serve. This is one of the oldest problems in all of American military service. A great Soldier by the name of David Hackworth (look him up) compared fear in himself and his men to a bottle. Every man is like a bottle, he said. Their bottle gets filled up with fear throughout their time in the military. Now, some bottles are bigger than others and can hold a little more, but everyone has a limit. If we as Soldiers ever become filled with enough fear that it exceeds what we can hold, then we breakdown. We become completely useless until we can take a knee and empty our bottles of all the fear we accumulated. However, once that happens, we are never the same again. No matter how great of a warrior we were, once we have experienced this complete filling of fear past our limit, we become like a spent cartridge. We may still be able to do our jobs to some extent, but we have lost our effectiveness. There's no more bang, it's gone. In other words, a spent cartridge. Taking Hackworth's thoughts further, I would argue that this is simply part of the human condition. We're not super heroes.

You're a private, you are not expected to have all the answers. You are expected to know your job and do your job. If you're honest about your struggle here and show the value of your character, then your leadership may find an alternate route for you other than separation or even better, work with you to overcome your fear, and support and protect you as you work through this. Some may apply pressure to try and kick you out off the bat, you won't survive this pressure without support from your leadership.

Realize this is as well, you are absolutely, guaranteed, 100% not the only Soldier who is scared out of their mind every time they jump out of a plane. You are not the first, you won't be the last. Dive into the pride of your achievements so far. You chose a selfless and courageous path to be Airborne, let alone be in the Army. This is a healthy pride as long as it doesn't lead to arrogance. And pride is a hell of a tool in facing our fears. Being stubborn is an admirable quality in Soldiers when used correctly. To that end, learn of and embrace the dark humor of Soldiers, especially Airborne Soldiers. Humor is another tool we use to deal with our lives in the military. Memorize the song Blood on the Risers and sing that to yourself on jump days. It's a song of pride sure, but it also has a dark sense of humor. There's nothing wrong with joking about fear and death. It's healthy too. Laugh at your fear, laugh at yourself. Tease yourself with your friends and joke about the craziness of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane... then jump, fall, crash into the Earth, go home, and drink a beer. Jump days can be some of the most beautiful days in your career if you let them. Hackworth shares a story in one of his books how a friend of his, the day before he retired, just wanted to jump out of a helicopter as many times as he could. They spent the whole day in a bird just jumping, up they flew and down they jumped, until their bodies were too sore to walk.

One last thing. Go talk to your Chaplain, like now. Contact them and ask to set up a meeting. Fear is connected to the human spirit. The Chaplain's job is to help keep your spirit strong. If you're unit chaplain is no-good for you, find one in another unit that is. Talking about this with the Chap may be good for you. At a minimum, the Chaplain could coach you through it. It is always a good thing to have a Chaplain aware of your problems and encouraging you through them, rooting for your success. If you learn this now as a private, you will be better equipped to teach it to your Soldiers when you become a leader and they need the same thing.

Hope this helps.

I am not a psychologist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.....

I think there is more going on under the surface than you are saying. It is entirely possible this is because you don't even realize it yourself (or you could just not want to discuss on an open forum). Because, taken at face value, your post makes no sense at all.

Airborne is one of the VERY few assignment that you can ONLY get by volunteering. You ASKED to go to jump school. You ASKED for an airborne assignment. After the Army gave you what you asked for, NOW you are scared of jumping out of airplanes?

There are four points in time when you could have developed this fear:
1) Before volunteering
2) After volunteering, but before jump school
3) During jump school
4) After jump school

In case #1, why the heck did you volunteer?
In #s 2 and 3, why did you COMPLETE jump school?

And for all 3, if your fear was so deep, how did you manage to complete jump school?

None of those are rational situations.

But for #4, there is no rational reason why, after having successfully completed jump school (and presumedly doing so without serious injury, as you still have your jump status), you would develop this fear AFTERWARDS.

Unless, of course, there is something else going on which is generating or intensifying this fear - or there is an entirely different fear which is using the fear of jumping as a mask.

I do not know the answers. But hopefully this will give you some things to reflect upon and find your own answers. Maybe that can help either overcome the fear or guide your path forward - at a minimum, it will help you answer the VERY tough questions coming your way if you DO decide to refuse to jump.

I wish you the best of luck as you work your way forward. But I highlynrecommend before you make any decisions, you do some serious soul-searching and figure out how you got here and where you REALLY want to go.

Bear in mind, I am not airborne, never was. I completely understand airborne ain't for everyone - including me! So there is no judgment here.

Good Luck with that. Being afraid of something that will kill you is never stupid. I was afraid of being shot - I got over it. At least the terrifying aspects of it all. You have already qualified and your training will carry you through it as long as you practice. As for if it will end your career - that's your choice. As for myself I do not want someone with me that is unprepared to shoulder those burdens necessary to complete the missions given them.