95-year-old Korean War veteran skydives to celebrate his birthday
SAN MARCOS, Texas - Ivan Smith is no stranger to flying high in the sky.
"From the 70s, whenever we got our airplanes and then, and I've flown, I've flown with Patty Wagstaff and that's aerobatic type flying. And of course, I wore a parachute at that time, but thank God I didn't have to come out of that little airplane," said Smith.
But this time he's putting on gear to jump out of a plane for his 95th birthday.
"George Bush jumped out at 94, I think, and or 90 or 93 or 94 or something. And I feel like that. Yeah. 95 I can do that," said Smith, who lives in San Marcos.
In Smith's 95 years of life he's accomplished so many things. He served in the US Marines in the Korean War.
"I was in Panama, I made a pack, you might say, of whoever's left. Winds ends up with the trophy with…I think it's a bourbon and bourbon or something in the container that I have," says Smith.
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He also built a two-man Scorpion helicopter and in the 60s he built his own two-man submarine.
"We did so much flying across country, flying. We did a lot of that. So, we know what flying is all about. So, it's nothing. Nothing to it as far as I'm concerned," said Smith.
"In the 1950s, I didn't have, I didn't have a lot of money to buy parachutes and such as that. So, I went scuba diving," added Smith. "So, what's left? Skydiving."
Smith says he hopes to come back in five years to celebrate his 100th birthday alongside his family.