I did airborne school Spring of '89. BAsically your brain can go completely dormant for the duration, the classic case of the Army's "four days of training crammed into three weeks". Not gonna lie, the jumping part scared the crap out of me and truthfully, just can't see that it's a worthwhile skill set or capability anymore, at least not on a large scale, maybe for special ops stuff.
Even as young and dumb as I was, I was smart enough to know my chances of getting killed or maimed in a jump were greatly reduced if I didn't jump, so #5 was my last one, never wanted to again. Most of career I was in mechanized units, never dug the light fighter mentality, they tend to be rock heads and if going into harm's way, I want enough mobility and firepower to be able to hurt something.