U.S. Navy divers assigned to Mobile Dive and Salvage Unit Two (MDSU 2) company 23, joined divers from Panama, Belize and Canada to exchange knowledge and tactics in Panama City, Panama, Aug. 16.

MDSU 2 divers are deployed as a part of Navy Dive Southern Partnership 2011 (ND-SPS 11) and are joining PANAMAX during this part of their deployment. This engagement will include an exchange of information with the multinational divers on dive medicine, chamber operations, and cutting and welding techniques, while conducting a salvage survey as part of PANAMAX.

Video by 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit

Thirty-five Senate and House staffers last week experienced the training Soldiers receive at Fort Polk's Joint Readiness Training Center.

For the third year, the secretary of the Army invited congressional staffers to observe how the Army prepares brigade combat teams for deployment to Afghanistan. This year, the staffers not only got a taste of what Soldiers experience, they were active participants in the tactical pre-deployment training of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division from Fort Richardson, Alaska.

"I asked my dad, 'Please don't let me die like this, I have a kid in my arms,'" said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Don Schmidt, a Patriot missile system technician for B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery. "People just don't die that way."

These were Schmidt's final thoughts before a huge piece of debris struck him in the head and he lost his grip on 11-year-old Angel Sandoval, resulting in the boy being swept away by the raging flashflood waters.

Three Marines kneel next to each other, waiting for the order to move. When it comes, the Marines spring into action sprinting for the nearest cover. Within seconds the distinctive sound of the M4 carbine fills the air as the three-man team begins methodically dropping targets.

Marines and Sailors with the scout sniper platoon, and the personal security detachment of Headquarters and Service Company, Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducted an unknown distance shooting competition, August 17.

The Seabees of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 7 completed Operation Bearing Duel, the battalion's field training exercise and final evaluation period (FTX/FEP) at Joint Training Facility Camp Shelby, Miss., Aug. 9.

The FTX/FEP evaluated the battalion's abilities in every NMCB mission area and certified NMCB 7 as the Atlantic Fleet Seabees' Independent Unit Ready for Tasking.

Bring up the subject of "rounds" in Army medicine, and you're probably talking about professional group visits to hospital wards.

When Soldiers from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Natick Soldier Systems Center mentioned rounds Aug. 12 at a range on Fort Devens, they referred to the kind that you shoot from M-16 rifles.

Video by 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit

Within every Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier is a nervous system. A network of wires and cables relay battlefield information to the pilot and send his intent with the flick of a wrist or press of a button back through the jet at the speed of light.

The end result: a nimble attack jet that can hover, land vertically, and provide precision bombs on target.

In Afghanistan, the task of safeguarding the network of wires and cables that make the Harrier capable falls upon the shoulders of Marine Attack Squadron 513’s avionics technicians.