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Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. (August 8, 2023): In this photo by Staff Sergeant Darius Sostre-Miroir, Staff Sergeant Paul Bartholdson and Technical Sergeant Nathan Edwards, Rescue Riggers with the 920th Logistics Readiness Squadron, prepare to attach a reach pendant underneath a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter during sling load training. A sling load is used to transport a variety of cargo to remote, austere locations while suspended beneath the versatile Pave Hawk.
In 1981, the Air Force chose the Pave Hawk to replace the legendary Jolly Green Giant, the Air Force’s workhorse helicopter since the 1960s. Manufactured by Sikorski Aircraft, the Pave Hawk is a four blade, twin engine, medium lift chopper used primarily by special operations troops. Its missions include the insertion and recovery of special operations troops, combat search and rescue, and resupply of forces by air. They take on the most secretive and dangerous missions for the U.S. military.
The “Pave” is an upgraded communications and navigation suite that includes integrated inertial navigation/global positioning/Doppler navigation systems, satellite communications, and secure voice communications. The system allows the Pave Hawk to operate day or night and under severe weather conditions making it ideal for civil search and rescue and aeromedical evacuation.
The 920th Logistics Readiness Squadron provides supply, fuels, and transportation for warfighters preparing for deployment worldwide. The Squadron is comprised of Airmen who specialize in deployment planning, supply chain operations, and transportation management.
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Norco, California. (August 1, 2023): In this photo by Neil Mabini, Tam Vo, an electrical engineer with the High Energy Laser and Metrology Lab at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, addresses local high school students participating in the Navy’s Science and Technology Education Partnership’s program. Nicknamed “STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and mathematics) in Defense,” this pilot program holds summer learning labs to give hands-on experience on career opportunities in the national defense field.
The Navy encourages students to pursue cybersecurity, data analytics, and the commercialization of military technology through outreach programs to area middle and high schools to get young students to become excited about pursuing careers in STEM.
Part of this educational outreach involves providing mentors and current engineering students from various disciplines in electrical, computer, mechanical, industrial and technology to individual students as they plan their future. The goal is to develop a new generation of workers and leaders who are grounded in the basic and applied sciences and can harness the increasingly complex technologies of tomorrow.
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Great Lakes, Illinois. (August 1, 2023): In this photo by MC1 Luke McCall, Captain Craig Mattingly, commander of Naval Service Training Command, speaks to officer candidates during Naval ROTC New Student Indoctrination aboard the USS Marlinspike, a training ship at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes. The Naval ROTC program is a major contributor of new Naval officers through Navy ROTC offices at more than 160 colleges and universities across the country.
On the junior level, Navy ROTC and the National Defense Cadet Corps teach citizenship and civic responsibility through programs offered at more than six hundred high schools around the country.
The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (Navy ROTC) Program was established in 1926 to educate and train qualified young men and women for service as commissioned officers in the Naval Reserve or Marine Corps Reserve. As the largest single source of Navy and Marine Corps officers, the NROTC Scholarship Program fills a vital need in preparing mature young men and women for a career in today’s high-tech Navy and Marine Corps.
Applicants must pass a highly competitive national selection process and are awarded scholarships including tuition, books, and other financial benefits. Scholarship students make their own arrangements for college enrollment, like room and board, and they take the normal course load required by the university. They are also required to take several naval science courses in addition to their college's prescribed course load.
Upon graduation, NROTC Scholarship Program midshipmen are commissioned as ensigns in the Naval Reserve or second lieutenants in the Marine Corps Reserve and must serve up to an additional four years.
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Georgetown, Guyana. (August 3, 2023): In this photo by Tech. Sergeant Brigette Waltermire, troops from Guyana, Mexico, Trinidad, and Tobago join U.S. forces to storm aboard a simulated “pirate” ship at a shore base during Tradewinds 23, a training event centering on human rights, anti-trafficking operations, and jungle warfare. During this two-week event, solders from Caribbean and Central American nations held jungle certification, marksmanship, and airborne wing exchanges in realistic training across Guyana. The exercise also included seminars on human rights, women, peace, and security in the Caribbean.
In its 38th year, Tradewinds 23 focuses on fighting organized crime, maritime interdiction of drugs, and battling human trafficking. This year’s event involved twenty-one nations and more than 1,500 people from all branches of the U.S. military, civilians, and law enforcement across partner nations.
U.S. military organizations that supported Tradewinds included Army and Air National Guard units from Alabama, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, and the Virgin Islands; U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM); U.S. Army South; U.S. Marine Corps Forces South; Marine Forces Reserve, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
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Palawan, Philippines. (August 3, 2023): In this photo by Lance Corporal Juan Torres, Private First-Class Justin O’Neal and Lance Corporal Ignacio Aginaga, machine gunners with 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division fire their M2A1 50 caliber machine gun during live fire exercises during Marine Aviation Support Activity 23. This semi-annual Philippine/U.S. training exercise includes live fire events involving heavy machine guns like the M2A1 50 Caliber.
These young Marines probably do not know it, but they are lugging around a weapon with a rich history of saving lives in battle. Developed in 1918, 50 caliber was the brainchild of John Moses Browning, an American firearm designer who developed a wide array of military firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms. The son of a gun store owner, young Browning made his first firearm at age 13, and he would go on to develop one of the most reliable and devastating weapons in modern warfare, the 50-caliber machine gun.
During World War II, soldiers marveled at the power and punch of the Browning M2 calling it the “Mother of All Machine Guns” or simply “Ma Deuce”. The M2 has been used extensively as a vehicle weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States since the 1930s. It was heavily used during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Soviet–Afghan War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. It is the primary heavy machine gun of NATO countries and has been used by many other countries as well.
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U.S., August 9, 2023 - Care goods are loaded for 900+ deploying service members the week of the 1st. One of several. All made possible by your donations. Your SOT Team focuses solely on serving the active duty servicemembers who are serving all of us. In America, all good comes from those who rise to the occasion and you have clearly done. They deliver for us -- we deliver for them. A simple moral equation.
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