It’s probably no surprise that Captain America loves the troops. Actor Anthony Mackie spent time with them on Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia in 2016 while promoting “Captain America: Civil War.” More than a decade after making his first Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance as the Falcon, Mackie is headlining his first feature film as Captain America. To celebrate, he went skydiving with Air Force pararescue jumpers.

In a video uploaded to Marvel Studio’s social media on Wednesday, Mackie is seen on the flightline of Las Vegas’ Nellis Air Force Base, where he meets the aircrew of a HC-130J Combat King II along with pararescuemen from Nellis’ 58th Rescue Squadron. Mackie is then seen jumping from the HC-130J’s rear paratrooper door — but instead of his usual wings, Mackie is making a tandem jump with one of the pararescue airmen.

Mackie visited Nellis to promote his upcoming film “Captain America: Brave New World” with fellow actor Danny Ramirez, who will reprise his role as Joaquin Torres — the new Falcon — from the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

Jumping from a perfectly good aircraft with pararescuemen wasn’t a random choice. Mackie is an avid skydiving enthusiast with more than 15 jumps under his belt, including two solo dives, a hobby he revealed on “Live with Kelly and Mark” in 2020. More importantly, his MCU character is a former Air Force pararescueman with two deployments to Afghanistan — assigned to the 58th Rescue Squadron.

At the end of the video, the real-world jumpers slap a real PJ patch on his sleeve, paying homage to his representing them on the silver screen, while Mackie presents them with a signed replica of Captain America’s iconic shield.

“When we first saw Sam Wilson, he was a counselor, he was a veteran, he was a facilitator, a supporter of soldiers,” Mackie told BlackTreeTV during an interview on the base. “That was something that was very important for me, keeping that all the way through the storyline. There were certain aspects of his being… that I wanted to hone in on in this movie, because now we get to see Sam Wilson fully accept and fully take the shield. There’s no question: He is Captain America.”

The Air Force is probably the best-represented branch of the U.S. military in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only is the new Captain America an Air Force veteran, Captain Marvel (played by actress Bree Larson) was an Air Force pilot and “War Machine” James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) was an Air Force officer, despite the latter’s comic-book origin as a Marine. The service cooperated with all three “Iron Man” films and “Captain Marvel,” a relationship the Air Force described as “the most effective electronic US Air Force publicity and recruiting tools.”

In the latest MCU film, newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross (played by Harrison Ford, replacing the deceased William Hurt as the character) and once a critic of the Avengers, asks Captain America to help him reform the team as best they can. Wilson soon finds himself at the center of an international incident and works to stop the masterminds behind it. The cast includes Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad”), Tim Blake Nelson (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”), Liv Tyler (“Armageddon”) and Rosa Salazar (“Bird Box”).

“Captain America: Brave New World” is in theaters everywhere on Feb. 14, 2025.

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