Petersburg resident shares lifetime moment with son, granddaughter

DINWIDDIE — Few of us have the courage to jump out of an airplane even once, but for Petersburg resident Andrew Sheffield, he made his 591st parachute jump on Sunday, at the ripe old age of 90 no less.

To mark his 90th birthday, which he celebrated back in April, Sheffield, a retired Army veteran, former Petersburg police officer and local contractor and handyman, went skydiving alongside his son and granddaughter. He was born and raised within 3 miles of the Dinwiddie County Airport, so it's rather appropriate he’s making the jump with the Virginia Skydiving Center located there. Sherry Gunter, manager of the Virginia Skydiving Center says he may be the oldest person ever to jump with them.

“I think it's awesome, he jumped with us a couple of years ago, and he wanted to do it again for his 90th birthday,” says Gunter. “He’s an old pro at this, and such a kind gentleman, and we’re happy we get to share this moment with his friends and family.”

Sheffield is very spry at the age of 90, making the rounds in the Virginia Skydiving Center hangar bay, hugging family members that have come all the way from Ohio to see him, and cracking jokes with fellow members of American Legion Post 284 in Colonial Heights, where he’s been a long-time member. One of them brings up that President George H.W. Bush did the same thing for his 90th birthday, to which Sheffield jokes that he’s “looking forward to showing that Navy flyboy how we did it in the Airborne.”

Jesse Stacey, one of his fellow legionnaires, says Sheffield has always been the life of the party like this.

“He’s always been a character and a real straight shooter, and everyone that meets him loves him,” says Stacey. “I couldn’t do it myself, but I’m not the least bit surprised he’s making a jump for his birthday; he’s always loved it.”

Lying about his age and enlisting to fight in World War II at the age of 16, having seen some paratroopers in Petersburg, he decided he would volunteer to be a paratrooper. From there, Sheffield says it was “love at first flight.”

His war record reads like a list of milestones. Sheffield attended the US Army Airborne School at Fort Benning in 1944 in one of its inaugural classes. In World War II, he was a member of the 11th Airborne Division in the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, serving in the Pacific Theatre in the Philippines and counted himself as one of the first American troops to raise the U.S. flag over the Japanese Home Islands, five days before the peace treaty was signed.

From there, he was stationed in Germany and at Fort Lee, where he kept skydiving, and worked as a jump instructor and parachute rigger, and was one of the first soldiers to make a HALO jump in the 1960s before retiring from the Army in 1964 after having spent 20 years in uniform.

“It’s as much a thrill to me today as it was the first time,” says Sheffield. “I’m certainly just as thrilled I’m still able to do this at the age of 90.”

He wasn’t taking to the skies alone either, with his son Andrew Sheffield III and granddaughter, Carol Prior, making the jump with him — a matter that Sheffield was deeply proud of, and a pride reflected by his family members as his son will tell you.

“I used to watch my dad do this back in the '60s, growing up not far from here at Fort Lee, his jump boots by the door every day,” says Sheffield III. “To have my dad ask me to make a jump with him, to share this moment with him, and see the world from ten thousand feet up the way he has for all these years, I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything.”

With a kiss from his wife, and a loud cheer from his family and friends, they board the plane, and head up 14,000 feet. Everyone looks up at the sky waiting to see the chutes open as the minutes pass. Once they do, watching Sheffield in action, it's as clear as day that this was a man born to fly, perfectly at home with a parachute chord in hand as he lands with a cheer from the crowd.

For a man who has spent more than seven decades jumping out of planes, Sheffield offers this bit of life advice to those who have never done the same.

“Just get in the damn plane and jump,” Sheffield says. “Life is too short to do anything else.”

• Sean CW Korsgaard may be reached at skorsgaard@progress-index.com, or at (804) 722-5172.