North Syracuse, NY -- Fred Salisbury jumped out of airplanes as a paratrooper more than a dozen times during World War II. The North Syracuse man, who is now 89, got to do it again on Saturday, the first time he’s made a jump since the war. “I was thinking about doing something different and I feel great, so...
Fred Salisbury of North Syracuse was a paratrooper in World War II. He jumped out of an airplane on Saturday for the fun of it at 89 years old.North Syracuse, NY -- Fred Salisbury jumped out of airplanes as a paratrooper more than a dozen times during World War II. The North Syracuse man, who is now 89, got to do it again on Saturday, the first time he’s made a jump since the war.
“I was thinking about doing something different and I feel great, so I said, why not try it again,” Salisbury said. He made the jump with a partner at Finger Lakes Skydivers in Ovid in Seneca County.
Salisbury didn’t tell his wife of 55 years about his plans until the morning of the jump. “I didn’t know what to think about it,” said his wife, Peggy.
She said she was worried at first, but “when we got there he was so calm about it that it was hard to be nervous.”
Fred Salisbury's photo from World War II. He served from 1944 to 1946.Salisbury said it was a beautiful day for a jump and it reminded him of the days when he served with the 87th Airborne, from 1944 to 1946. “When you are young, it’s no big deal to jump out of plane because you just don’t care,” he said. “We didn’t really think about it, we just did it.”
Salisbury, who has two daughters, five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, isn’t ruling out the possibility of jumping again. On Saturday he jumped with an instructor and his family watched as he made his way to the ground.
“It was fun and just something I wanted to,” he said.