As a young man from Cebu Island with a dream of joining the Philippine Air Force, Charles Gutierrez enrolled at the Philippine State College of Aeronautics to study aircraft maintenance. There, he pursued his associate’s degree but did not complete the bachelor’s degree requirement for him to join the Philippine Air Force. However, Gutierrez still longed for a military career, and this calling took him across the Pacific Ocean in 2017 to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where he stood on the legendary yellow footprints to become a United States Marine.
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U.S. Marines with 3rd Littoral Combat Team, 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, and Philippine Marines with Marine Battalion Landing Team 8 joined forces to plan and conduct the largest combined and joint live fire range of Balikatan 24 on May 6, 2024. The Marines were supported by U.S. Army and Philippine Marine Corps and Army artillery, which added long-range fires to the counter-landing scenario.
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Marines with 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, III Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, based in Okinawa, Japan, and 6th ANGLICO, Force Headquarters, Marine Forces Reserve based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, deployed to neighboring islands along Okinawa in support of Katana Strike 24.
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CAMP AGUINALDO, Quezon City, Philippines – The Armed Forces of the Philippines hosted the closing ceremony of Exercise Balikatan 2024, marking the successful conclusion of the largest annual combined military exercise between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America.
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Service members from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and U.S. military successfully completed a series of humanitarian civic assistance efforts focused on community health engagements, engineering civic action projects, and civil-military engagements during Exercise Balikatan 24.
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In a display of enhanced interoperability, Philippine and U.S. military forces worked shoulder-to-shoulder in Northern Luzon and the Batanes Islands to establish and operate vital sustainment hubs for conducting all-domain, expeditionary operations on various islands in the Luzon Strait, including Mavulis, Itbayat, and Batan, during Balikatan 24.
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