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MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. (April 3, 2025): In this adorable photo by Airman 1st Class Alicia Campbell, a student from Tinker K-8 tries on an explosive ordnance helmet during a Contingency and Readiness Education Simulation event. Organized by the base Family Readiness Center, the meeting helps family members understand what their parents experience when they are deployed.
The DOW understands the negative impact deployment can have on military families and is determined to mitigate them. Unlike other professions, the military requires its members to be ready to deploy anywhere in the world to face potential combat. These frequent separations affect family members differently by age and the length of the deployment.
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Pacific Ocean. (March 31, 2025): America is one step closer to returning to the Moon and beyond after the third successful recovery test of NASA’s crewed Artemis II spacecraft. In this photo by MC2 Olivia Rucker, Sailors assigned to the amphibious transfer dock USS Somerset and NASA personnel assist astronauts onto the “front porch”, an inflatable raft, during exercise Underway Recovery Test 12. The mission is to ensure the astronauts are recovered and safely transported to waiting ships within two hours of splashdown.
Artemis II’s ten-day mission will carry four astronauts on a flyby of the Moon, the first since Apollo 17 in 1972. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Kock, and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen will reenter the earth’s atmosphere travelling 25,000 mph landing approximately sixty miles off the coast of California.
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Bangkok, Thailand. (April 7, 2025): On March 28th, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar (formerly Burma) causing damage as far away as Thailand, six hundred miles away. In this photo by Air Force Staff Sergeant Matthew Wisher, U.S. Indo-Command military personnel work alongside Thai first responders near the collapsed State Audit Building here. Fortunately for the people of Thailand, the U.S. already had humanitarian relief personnel in place due to the recent Cobra Gold military exercises.
As of this date, eleven people are confirmed dead and dozens of construction workers are missing after the building collapsed. Thai authorities also said thirty-two people were injured and another eighty-three remain missing.
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Hamminkeln, Germany. (March 31, 2025): When Americans are asked what was the biggest airborne operation in World War II they are likely to cite Market Garden, the ill-fated invasion of Holland. But it wasn’t the biggest. In the above photo, Army Captain Monika Stoy presents a wreath marking the 80th anniversary of Operation Varsity, the largest single-day airborne drop of the war.
The date was March 24, 1945, and the allies had reached the Rhine river, Germany’s last natural barrier to an allied invasion. Breaching the Rhine would allow the Allies to access to Northern Germany and ultimately Berlin. Led by British General Bernard Montgomery, allied forces mobilized 16,000 troops and thousands of aircraft in the final major airborne assault of the war.
Read more: OPERATION VARSITY… THE LARGEST AIRBORNE OPERATION IN WWII
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F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. (April 5, 2025): This sprawling base is home to the Air Force’s 90th Security Forces Squadron which is responsible for training K-9s to become a warfighters best friend. In this photo by Airman 1st Class Mattison Cole, Senior Airman Dariel Gonzalez Ramos, a military working dog handler, carries his partner Rex after being fired upon by opposing forces during substance detection training.
Detection training for Military Working Dogs (MWDs) and their handlers is focused on nuclear security, explosives, drugs, and identifying human remains. K-9’s are conditioned by their handlers to associate specific scents with rewards, starting with controlled environments and gradually introducing real-world scenarios.
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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (April 3, 2025): Known for incarcerating the worst of the 911 defendants, “Gitmo” is also home to the Navy’s Medicine Readiness and Training Command. In this photo by Emily McCamy, Hospitalman Alex Hall, Hospitalman Jacob Riveracalvo, Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Keyanna Glenn, and Hospitalman Ashley Mucheru practice litter-bearing during casualty evacuation training. The Navy hospital provides healthcare to the Gitmo community which includes approximately 5,000 military personnel, federal employees, contractors, and their families.
America’s presence on this Communist island dates to 1903 where it served as a coaling station to supply warships, making it the oldest overseas U.S. naval base. The lease agreement, which has no fixed expiration date, has consistently been protested by the Cuban government which objects to the presence of U.S. forces on Cuban soil.