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Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. (April 12, 2023): In this photo by Corporal Mitchell Johnson, Marine Corps Sergeant Steven Gomez, a small arms repair technician with Weapons Training Battalion, fires a World War II vintage French M1 Grand rifle during Marine Corps Championships at Quantico, Virginia. Marines who place in the top ten percent in marksmanship during unit competition are invited to participate in the Marine Corps Championships, a ten-day contest in precision rifle, pistol, and multi-gun action shooting to see which unit has the sharpest marksmen in the Marine Corps.
Quantico is affectionately known as the “crossroads of the Marine Corps” in that no other base touches virtually every aspect of the Corps. The base is primarily used for training and hosts the USMC The Basic School, Officer Candidates School, Marine Corps University, Weapons Training Battalion, and the FBI Academy.
The Commandant of the Marine Corps established Quantico on May 14, 1917, and thousands of Marines would be trained there before World War I. The goal at that time was to make Quantico “and the whole Marine Corps a great university.”
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Philippine Sea. (April 10, 2023) Few modern movies open with a more dramatic scene than Top Gun 1986 with iconic images of Sailors preparing to launch the F-14 Tomcat. Clouds of steam billowing around their ankles, navy crews their final checks before receiving a sharp salute from Tom Cruise whose Phantom screams off the deck. For civilians, launching and recovering aircraft aboard a moving aircraft carrier at sea must be the most complicated and dangerous operation imaginable.
In this photo by MC3 Hannah Kantner, Sailors perform a complicated dance to prepare aircraft for flight operations on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. The Nimitz is part of the U.S. 7th Fleet and is the Navy's largest forward-deployed flotilla. The 7th Fleet operates with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
In the “dance”, each Sailor (identified by color) does their part in a highly choreographed, and dangerous, process where every action must be in perfect sync. The Air Boss, perched above the flight deck, controls every movement on a carrier from helicopters to jet fighters, five nautical miles out from the carrier.
Read more: USS Nimitz… CARRIER SAILORS DO “COMPLICATED DANCE”
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Camp Pendleton, California. (April 5, 2023): In this photo by Sergeant Maximiliano Rosas, Corporal Benjamin McDonald, a bulk fuel specialist with Bulk Fuel Company, 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group pumps excess seawater out of a liquid “bladder” during tactical operations on Silver Strand Beach, California.
Bulk Fuel Specialists install, operate, maintain, and repair fuel handling units and accessory equipment and test petroleum products used in amphibious assault vehicles. They are experts at hazardous materials management, and they test petroleum products to evaluate their quality. These professionals are responsible for refueling everything, from automobiles to jet aircraft, following strict safety protocols.
While the position of Bulk Fuel Specialists may not seem that glamorous, the mission they perform can easily decide the outcome of a battle. After all, what good is it for courageous Marines to seize a beachhead or liberate an airfield if you cannot get fuel, water, ammunition, and food to the troops and their vehicles. In fact, the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, also known as “Big Red”, has been so vital to military success that it has participated in the Viet Nam War, Operation Desert Shield/Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the war against terror in Afghanistan.
Today, Marine planners estimate that an expeditionary force would use 1.2 million gallons of fuel a day when conducting amphibious landings. Without experts at handling, storing, and distributing this precious commodity, even the finest military cannot succeed.
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Hurlburt Field, Florida. (April 5, 2023): In this photo by Airman 1st Class Hussein Enaya, Airmen assigned to the 1st Special Operations Maintenance Squadron remove the rear spinner of an MC-130H Combat Talon II at the Squadron Central Repair Facility at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The Squadron is responsible for maintaining combat-capable aircraft and equipment for Air Force Special Operations Command missions.
Their motto, “Any Time, Any Place”, accurately describes the mission of these highly specialized teams of more than 650 active duty and civilian mechanics and engineers who service and repair a variety of special mission aircraft.
The Squadron operates a Centralized Repair Facility to address problems unique to Air Force Special Operations Command. These highly secretive missions require unique avionics, electronic warfare components, and flight controls. They also provide crash recovery and emergency response for the airfield and surrounding communities.
Read more: 1ST SPECIAL OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE SQUADRON “ANY TIME, ANY PLACE”
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Pacific Ocean. (April 2, 2023): In this photo by MC3 Leon Vonguyen, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Garrett Fogg, from Augusta, Ga., conducts maintenance on an EA-18G Growler assigned to the “Gauntlets” of Electronic Attack Squadron 136 in the hangar bay aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The Carl Vinson is currently underway conducting Tailored Ship’s Training Availability/Final Evaluation Problem certification, a series of assessments of a crew’s ability to train themselves. When at sea, a carrier must make train its crew without any outside help. Crews are evaluated on their proficiency in warfighting, damage control including shipboard firefighting, simulated man overboard, abandon ship drills, and mass casualty events. Meanwhile, support units conduct replenishments-at-sea and do administrative reviews of crew performance.
Modern aircraft like the Growler are extremely complex and require great technical skill to maintain at peak efficiency. That is why one of the most vital Sailors onboard is the Aviation Electronics Technician. The ultimate jack-of-all-trades, these specialists are the consummate problem solvers, dashing between aircraft from tackling on issue after another. The aviation technician must know every aspect of the electrical systems on both fighters and helicopters, from engine wiring to navigation instruments, and be able to diagnose and fix problems “on the fly”. The job demands great attention to detail as these technicians work on flight-critical systems that impact passenger and crew safety.
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Atlantic Ocean, (March 30, 2023): There are few things more terrifying to a Sailor than being marooned at sea, surrounded by water, dying of thirst. In the above photo by MC2 Cryton Vandiesal, Hull Maintenance Technician Fireman Wenwei Chen aligns a reverse osmosis demineralizer aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Nitze. The Nitze is part of the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group that is on a scheduled deployment to Naval Forces Europe with the U.S. 6th Fleet.
The challenge of maintaining an adequate water supply at sea had bedeviled mariners for centuries. In primitive times, a captain would carry as much water as possible because, once out of sight of land, their lives depended on it. Landlubbers will ask, “Why didn’t they just boil sea water to drink?” The answer is simple, boiling seawater does not remove salt, too much of which is deadly for humans. Fortunately, today’s mariners have the technology to convert enormous amounts of saltwater into drinking water through a process known as distillation. Distillation is accomplished by heating seawater to the boiling point to vaporize it. The vapors condense into a liquid which removes impurities and contaminants.
The next step in generating fresh water aboard a warship is through Osmosis, a process to desalinate ocean water by passing it through a thin, porous membrane that acts as both a filter and a salt barrier. Reverse Osmosis requires multiple stages of filtration to strip off additional minerals and other solid contaminants. In the final filtration stage, essential minerals are added back into the water to ensure Sailors receive the potable nutrition from that is healthy to drink.
So, how does the Navy provide fresh water to ships as large as an aircraft carrier?