She joined the Army at 45. Now she’s vying to be an Army Golden Knight
Spc. Maribeth Kossman joined the Army at 45 to become a Golden Knight after serving in the Navy, teaching elementary school and finding a love of skydiving in her off time.
Patty Nieberg
Maribeth Kossman, a former first grade teacher and Navy electronics technician, was 45 when she joined the Army to jump from airplanes with the service’s Golden Knights Parachute Team.
“When I was 19 years old, when I was in the Navy, there was a group of sailors that wanted to go skydiving so I went with them. I did one skydive and I thought that was going to be the last time I jumped out of a plane,” Kossman said.
A Navy enlistment and a teaching career later, Kossman, now 46 and an Army specialist, tried out for the Golden Knight’s 2024 selection this year, and made it about halfway through the roughly two-month process. She’s aiming again for the September 2025 selection. For now, she is assigned to the Golden Knights for ground operations and media relations.
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