FORT BRAGG — A video showing members of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Chorus singing “My Girl,” on one of Fort Bragg’s drop zones after a jump has gained more than 6.3 million views.

The video, which was first posted to TikTok in April and later shared to the 82nd Airborne Division Association’s Facebook page where it’s gained the most views, is not the first time a Fort Bragg-related unit or soldier has gone viral.

Here’s a look at what videos have generated public interest in recent years.

Jump videos

When it comes to the home of the airborne and special operations forces, it seems viewers want to see just that — paratroopers jumping from aircraft.

Racking up more than 247.93 million views on YouTube is a video shared from the AiirSource Military channel, which says it “covers events and missions” from U.S. armed forces.

The video, uploaded in May 2016, is of paratroopers with the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions conducting static line jumps from a C-18 aircraft over the Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg, according to the video description.

Another video that has gained more than 6 million views, was posted to the YouTube account Gung Ho Vids on July 2014. Simply titled “82nd Airborne over Fort Bragg,” the video was shot by Master Sgt. Pedro Jimenez and Senior Airman Brandi Hansen.

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According to the video’s description, paratroopers jumped out of C-130 and C-17 aircraft over Fort Bragg as part of a qualification jump to maintain pay standards.

Jump videos shared to 82nd Airborne Division and Fort Bragg Facebook pages have also gained millions of views. Those include:

• A February 2016 video of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team jumping from a C-130 aircraft during a joint Air Force and 82nd training exercise known as “Large Package Week,” which has gained 3.2 million views.

• A November 2015 video of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team conducting an airborne operation with NATO counterparts for an exercise called Trident Juncture that depicts a first-person paratrooper point of view during a jump and has gained 2.3 million views.

• A December 2014 video simply titled “knees in the breeze,” which also shows a paratrooper point of view jump, has more than 2.2 million views.

• A July 2019 video shared to the 18th Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg Facebook page, which shows a jump and has gained 2.2 million views.

A Terrible Secret

In a June 2017 video that has more than 2.2 million views is of a speech made by Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla during a memorial ceremony. Kurilla was then commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Kurilla told those in the crowd that they all shared “a terrible secret.”

“We know that freedom, democracy and the defeat of evil are paid for in blood,” he said.

Boot Run

Each year before Memorial Day, more than 7,500 boots are on display to represent military members of all branches who died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks or in the conflicts or personal battles that followed.

The boots coincide with the installation’s annual Run, Honor, Remember 5K, and a May 2016 video about the boots and run have gained more than 2 million views on Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps’ Facebook page.

Running cadence

A March 2019 video shared to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Facebook page has more than 1.9 million views, and shows old footage, as soldiers run to a cadence with the phrases “sign my name on a dotted line, all I do is the double time, up the hill, down the hill, down the hill, up the hill, airborne...”

Artillery competition

Annual “best of the best” competitions to promote esprit-de-corps are nothing new to the Army, but a video with highlights from the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery’s competition generated 1.5 million views on Facebook.

Honorable mentions

A recruiting video called “Ghosts in the Machine” shared by the 4th Psychological Operations Group in May hasn’t quite hit the 1 million view mark, but is on its way with more than 950,000 views.

The video, which starts out with whistling, and clips of a black and white cartoon, shifts to playing the eerie song “Last Goodbye,” over images of the fall of the Berlin Wall, protests in China and soldiers deployed around the world.

“This is a creepy, disturbing, and completely brilliant video,” one online commenter wrote. “If people get nothing else out of this video, hopefully, they understand the benefit of not taking everything at face value.”

A December 2018 video of a “little paratrooper competition” shows a young military child emulating the countdown and hand motions of jumpmasters before a jump and is shared on the 82nd Airborne Division’s Facebook page with 928,000 views.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fort Bragg viral moments: videos that went viral on social media