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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.
All Together Now!®
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Okinawa, Japan. (July 28, 2023): In this photo by Lance Corporal Say Ford, Marines with Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing evaluate a prototype loading system designed to allow the M142 High Mobility Rocket System (HIMARS) to be transported by the MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. This modern design was the handiwork of Gunnery Sergeant Rodrigo Hernandez-Polindara, an active-duty Marine whose invention could lead to a more efficient way to transport the vital HIMARS system to the battlefield.
The devastating impact of HIMARS has been demonstrated recently by Ukraine which has used the system effectively to push back against numerically superior Russian forces. HIMARS was originally developed in the 1990s for the Army as a mobile artillery system but has since been used for anti-aircraft protection and long-range precision strikes. For infantry forces. HMARS is mounted onto a five-ton truck and it carries either six Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets or one Army Tactical Missile System missile.
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Santa Barbara, California. (July 29, 2023): Most Americans envision the Coast Guard seizing bad guys and rescuing folks at sea, but most do not realize the vital role this service plays in responding to oil spill disasters.
In this photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard Uranga, a team of specialists from the U.S. Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and federal Water Mapping experts undergo advanced drone training aboard the USCG Cutter Blackfin. The week-long training involved using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to collect test images of oil spills to quickly evaluate the impact and the response needs of actual oil spill incidents.
In fact, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act requires the Coast Guard to contain and clean up oil spills in coastal waters and to minimize the environmental damages. In this role, the Coast Guard prepares regional and local contingency plans for how to respond to oil spills involving multiple state and local jurisdictions.
The advent of unmanned aerials systems has added an extremely powerful tool to accelerate emergency response to oil disasters. The Coast Guard deploys the Predator drone for use at sea and the smaller, shorter range, Scan Eagle from its cutters. The service also employs the larger, more versatile, MQ-9 Reaper Guardian to assist Customs and Border Protection with aerial surveillance.