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Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range, California. (April 3, 2025): It is seven weeks of the most demanding flying, and classroom work, in Marine Corps aviation. In the photo above, Marines conduct a close air support exercise as part of the Corps Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course (WTIC). Hosted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One stationed at Yuma, Arizona, the WTIC prepares instructors to be subject matter experts in aircraft and weapons, knowledge they will bring back to their operational squadrons.
The course focuses on integrating the six functions of Marine aviation, including air command and control, air assault, anti-air warfare, naval gunfire support, tactical support, and rotary wing aviation, in a simulated environment. Aviators are put through a series of increasingly complex combat scenarios in which they must plan and implement advanced air and ground tactics. If successful, graduates will become certified Weapons and Tactics Instructors.
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Fort Benning, Georgia. (April 9, 2024): Members of the 75th Ranger Regiment dominated the recent 2025 International Best Mortar Competition, and it wasn’t close. They beat out several other American military units as well as teams from Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In this photo by Captain Stephanie Snyder, Soldiers fire a 120 mm M120A1 towed mortar system during the four-day competition to determine the best indirect fire infantry in the world.
The shoot off was designed to highlight the capabilities of mortar crews while giving civilian spectators an inside look at Army combat operations. The competition was created to evaluate the physical, tactical, and technical capabilities of mortar teams from the U.S. and allied armies.
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Fort Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia. (April 9, 2025): The military is returning to using horse drawn caissons, or 18th century wooden wagons, for funerals occurring at Arlington National Cemetery. In this photo by Lance Corporal Christopher Prelle, Sergeant Joshua Williams straps in a training casket as a part of caisson refamiliarization training. This solemn custom was suspended in 2023 due to concerns about the health and care of the horses. After a thorough revamping of the Army’s veterinary care, practices, and equipment, these newly trained caisson squads will begin by conducting up to 10 funerals per week. When four squads are fully built and certified, the cemetery will be able to go up to about 20 caisson funerals a week.
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Pacific Ocean. (April 10, 2025): The world is witnessing the destruction of the supposedly mighty Russia military by inexpensive drones you can buy at a hobby store. The proliferation of FPV (First Person View) drones on the battlefield has the Marine Corps full attention. In this photo by Corporal Amelia Kang, Marines assigned to Battalion Landing Team 1/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit scan for simulated threats, such as missiles or other UAVs, from the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer.
For the Marines, the primary goal is to protect troops down to the squad level by providing a multi-tiered defense against drones. Simply “shooting them down” (Kinetic method) may be expensive overkill or impractical if hundreds of targets are involved because even the best shooters miss.
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Okinawa, Japan. (April 1, 2025): The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific War with the Americans suffering approximately 49,000 casualties, including over 12,000 killed. In this photo by Corporal Jesse Davis, Marine Corps veteran Walter LaSota, right, and his daughter Cynthia place flowers at a monument on Sugar Loaf Hill, the scene of some of the most intense fighting. A two-time Purple Heart recipient, LaSota, 99, of Reading, Pa., was a private with I Company, 22nd Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division.
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was the largest amphibious invasion in the Pacific Theater that occurred between April 1 and June 22, 1945. America’s goal was to secure the island to serve as a base for a future invasion of Japan. During eighty-two days of brutal fighting, U.S. troops battled Japanese forces who were desperate to defend their homeland. They launched kamikaze attacks and fought to the last man. Japanese losses were twice stunning, over 100,000 killed. The battle also resulted in significant casualties among the civilian population of Okinawa, with estimates ranging from 40,000 to 150,000 civilians killed.
Read more: OPERATION VARSITY… REVISITING THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA
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Patuxent River, Maryland. (April 12, 2025): The military’s age-old problem, how to evaluate expensive aircraft while training pilots to fly them at the same time. The Navy feels it has found the answer. In this photo by Terri Thomas, a pilot trains in the Joint Simulation Environment (JSE), a computer program originally developed to evaluate the Navy’s F-35 fighter aircraft and is now a vital training tool for pilots.
When the F-35 advanced strike fighter came onto the scene, the military needed a way to test various components under extreme conditions but could not afford to use real thing. Aircraft engineers developed the JSE to evaluate features on the F-35 that were too complicated or advanced to test in an open-air environment. Also, due to the extreme secrecy surrounding the F-35, these evaluations had to be kept away from prying eyes. The solution was a physics-based computer simulation capable of simultaneous interaction among multiple aircraft and enemy surface and aerial entities. Along the way, the Air Force Weapons School realized the JSE could be an excellent tool to provide realistic pilot training.