On June 7, 2012, Jon Harmon was a 19‑year‑old private first class on his first deployment in Afghanistan when an explosion took both of his legs — and nearly his life.
Now, exactly 14 years to the day, the former paratrooper will step out of a WWII-era C-47 and jump into the same drop zone where paratroopers of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 82nd Airborne fought on D‑Day.
“The fates always have an odd sense of irony in my life,” Harmon said in a press release. “Jumping on my 14th alive day, into the drop zone my 508 guys jumped, it’s surreal.”
“Eight months ago, if someone said that was possible, I would’ve laughed them out of the building,” Harmon continued. “But once it became a possibility, it was mission mode. How do we do this? What prosthetics? What padding? And then it was off to the races.”
For Harmon, the road — or sky — back to static-line parachuting has been a long time coming.
Enlisting in the Army just a couple months out of high school, the teen was soon patrolling in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, as a machine-gun ammo bearer with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, as part of Task Force Fury.
According to Harmon, the day began “as a routine patrol and key leader engagement with village elders about a mile and a half from their strongpoint.”
Around mid-afternoon, as the maneuver element began moving into the village, Harmon and his gunner set up the support‑by‑fire position, according to the release.
As Harmon was checking his angles, he moved alongside a low wall and berm, where his machine gun was positioned.
“And that’s when I stepped on it,” says Harmon. “It was a total brownout. I kept trying to stand up. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t until I looked down and saw my [tibia and fibula] sticking out.”
A cloud of dust and debris enveloped the seriously wounded paratrooper. To his horror, just mere seconds later, fellow soldier Pfc. Brandon Goodine stepped on a second device close to Harmon.
As medics worked to save both soldiers, they triggered a third IED.
“They carried him right over me,” Harmon said. “And then the stretcher team stepped on another plate. It was … it was bad. It killed Brandon instantly.”
His unit suffered 10 to 12 casualties that day, with Harmon, despite his grievous wounds and severe blood loss, conscious throughout the whole evacuation.
“It was like something out of Apocalypse Now. Just a pile of guys in the Black Hawk,” he recalled.
“The last thing I remember was the American flag on the ceiling as they pushed me into the surgical unit,” he said in the release.
After undergoing an emergency surgery in Afghanistan and then Germany, Harmon was eventually flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where doctors amputated his left leg above the knee. His right leg, according to the release, was already gone.
From that day in June, Harmon was thrust into a new mission.
While recovering at Walter Reed, another double below‑knee amputee came round to his bedside.
“He lifted his pant leg and said, ‘It doesn’t end here.’ From that moment on, I wanted to be like him,” said Harmon.
Returning to active duty through the Army’s Continuation on Active-Duty program, Harmon — who became the first double above‑knee amputee to return to active orders in the 82nd Airborne Division — served as the XVIII Airborne Corps liaison to help wounded soldiers and their families navigate similar situations as his.
Harmon served as a liaison until 2020, after which he left the Army to pursue higher education.
His Army career was seemingly finished — that is, until Dominic Mancuso, a fellow combat infantryman, came calling.
“Would you want to jump into Normandy?” he asked.
In 2025, Ramon Alvarez, an active duty first sergeant stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, had begun actively recruiting veteran paratroopers to take part in the ceremonies surrounding the 82nd anniversary of the Normandy invasion.
Alvarez, who had previously served with Mancuso in Afghanistan, is the co-founder of the WBS Charity Foundation, “a 501C3 nonprofit organization that channels collective generosity toward small, community-based nonprofits serving veterans,” according to the release.
From there, Harmon connected with the Liberty Jump Team, a commemorative parachute organization that “preserves airborne history by performing WWII‑style static‑line jumps at historic sites and memorial events,” per the release.
Nearly 14 years after jump school, Harmon began relearning the mechanics of parachuting — this time on specialized short prosthetic legs.
During his first jump this past March, something akin to catharsis occurred.
“I grabbed the door and thought, ‘This is so cool.’” he said in the release. “When I landed and stood up, I just broke down crying. I couldn’t believe I walked away unscathed.”
According to the release, Harmon is believed to be the first double above‑knee amputee to complete a static‑line parachute jump. He has already completed three jumps with his prosthetics, bringing his total to 10.
Harmon’s wife, an active-duty soldier herself, is encouraging him to keep going.
“As soon as my wife saw how insanely happy it made me, she said, ‘Yeah, you need to do this.’ And after I came back from BAR [basic airborne refresher], she told me, ‘You need to keep doing this. I haven’t seen you this happy in years.’”
On June 7, Harmon will jump into La Fière at Sainte‑Mère‑Église carrying Goodine’s necklace — lent to him by the soldier’s daughter — as well as some of his grandfather’s ashes and his original Army ID card. His grandfather, a Korean‑era infantryman, died recently, according to the release.
“I’ll be jumping with all my guys,” Harmon said. “Every paratrooper who came before me.”
For the former paratrooper, the jump into Normandy is more than sacred history, however.
“If I can use what I’m doing to help my guys so they’re not hurting themselves, I’ll do that for the rest of my life,” he said. “I want young paratroopers to know you can go into battle, get hurt, and life is not over. You can keep doing incredible things.”
“Stay airborne,” Harmon concluded. “It’s the greatest place on Earth.”
Claire Barrett is an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times. She is also a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.
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