{"id":48520,"date":"1999-10-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-10-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/951032c1-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e"},"modified":"1999-10-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1999-10-25T00:00:00","slug":"951032d5-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/951032d5-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e\/","title":{"rendered":"Benavente jumps for the veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Never mind if it was not a perfect landing because his partner skydiver Frank Loch tripped when he touched the ground.<\/p>\n<p>But House Speaker Diego T. Benavente was the happiest man when he landed safely on the track and field ground of Ada Gym Saturday at around 4:00 p.m..<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was nervous the whole time.  As I was boarding, I was not sure I could do it.  But I had to do it because I already made a commitment,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Benavente, a self-confessed acrophobic, participated in the Tandem Skydive, jumping  from 9,000 feet to raise funds for the U.S. Armed Forces Veterans Association.<\/p>\n<p>The association raised more than the target $3,000 to pay for the fare and lodging of the group&#8217;s over 50 members who will go to Rota to celebrate Veterans Day  next month, according to Mac Chargualaf, head of the organizing committee.<\/p>\n<p>A group of well-wishers composed of family members and friends anxiously waited for the plane and sky divers to jump.  And then one by one, they started coming out of the plane.<\/p>\n<p>Benavente&#8217;s wife Vicky who was almost crying was just too glad it was over. The previous night, she tried to stop her husband from pushing through.<\/p>\n<p>Would he dare jump again?  &#8220;Why not?  But it has to be for a good cause,&#8221; said Benavente.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Never mind if it was not a perfect landing because his partner skydiver Frank Loch tripped when he touched the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}