After cities, towns and military installations are built comes the never ending job of keeping them maintained and adding improvements.

For the Marines with Company C, 3rd Engineer Support Battalion, they have been doing both at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center during Operation Javelin Thrust.

Their main mission was sidewalk repair to help increase base safety by getting the Marines off the road on their way to the post exchange.

Video by Camp Lejeune Base Public Affairs

YAVORIV, Ukraine -- Rapid Trident 2011, underway at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center here, is in full swing and 13 nations have been training and conducting airborne operations together since the exercise started July 25.

Rapid Trident 2011 is a joint training and exercise program designed to enhance interoperability among Ukraine, the U.S. and Partnership for Peace member nations. Having so many different languages and cultures training together adds a unique challenge to the training for the U.S. troops.

Sailors aboard USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) conducted deck landing qualification (DLQ) training with Romanian navy pilots July 31-Aug. 1 as part of the bilateral exercise Summer Storm 2011.

The eight Romanian pilots, the only aviators in that country's navy, are members of "Black Sea Knights" and fly the IAR-330 Puma helicopter.

"There are over 400 pilots in Romania's air force," said Lt. Cmdr. Marius Metric, the Black Sea Knights commander. "Our naval aviation program is five years old and there are eight of us."

Specialized search dogs have become a new weapon in the war on improvised explosive devices, roving more than 100 meters in front of their handlers to find the deadly devices before they can be triggered.

SSD handlers with Military Police Support Company, III Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, III MEF worked with their dogs to perfect their detection abilities at Oura Wan beach at Camp Schwab July 26, clearing designated lanes of travel of explosive devices planted for training purposes, much as they would do on a combat deployment.

Marines with Marine Wing Communications Squadron 18 finished a five-day jungle survival course at the Jungle Warfare Training Center July 22.

“They (focused) on aspects of survival. Just basic steps that people in a survival situation would be confronted with,” said Lt. Col. Trent Blackson, commanding officer, JWTC, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force.

Dogs have often been referred to as man’s best friend, but the K-9 working dogs at the Provost Marshal’s Office, Headquarters and Service Battalion, are referred to as partners.

Marines, with the PMO K-9 unit on Marine Corps Base Camp Butler, conducted a search and aggresion exercise on Camp Foster July 29 to keep their dogs ready to go at a moment’s notice.

The training is crucial to the development of diligent working dogs, said Lance Cpl. Austin Nelson, a military working dog handler for PMO.

Following a bidding war with protests beginning December 2010 against the Army and its selection process, Boeing was finally awarded the contract when the stop-work was lifted on June 16 to begin building the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance Surveillance System, or EMARSS.

The contract includes an option for additional two Engineering and Manufacturing Development units and options for Interim Contractor Logistics Support, as well as, options for a total of six Low Rate Initial Production units and corresponding support.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. (AFNS) -- The C-17 Globemaster III aircrew members of "Ice 68" from the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings here were recognized by Gen. Raymond E. Johns Jr., the commander of Air Mobility Command, July 29 for their part in evacuating an ailing government contractor from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, June 28-30.