U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Phil Schiffman, a mortarman with the 81mm Mortar Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and 22-year-old Phoenix native, waves to two Afghan men on a motorcycle after searching them at a vehicle checkpoint here, Dec. 1, 2011.
In November 2011, the Marines and sailors of America’s Battalions began their final Afghanistan deployment to Helmand province’s Garmsir district. After six combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2004, they’re finally coming home. During their seven months in Garmsir, they advised and developed Afghan forces preparing to take the lead in providing security for the district.
U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Cpl. Reece Lodder (DVIDS)
U.S. Marine Cpl. Kleber Villalva, a section leader with Echo Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, cooks tuna with his makeshift kitchen during an overnight mobile post here, April 26, 2012.
Villalva, a 22-year-old Houston native currently serving his third combat deployment, has been committed to a Meal Ready-to-Eat free diet since arriving in southern Helmand in October 2011. He substitutes tuna, chicken, cereal and other food items he’s received in care packages from his family and his wife, Lauren, for the pre-packaged contents of MREs.
(Photo by Marine Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez)
From left, U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Cody K. Zimmerman and U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Christopher D. Ward, both with Golf Company, 2D Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, search for enemy spotters during an engagement in Musa Qal’eh, Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 15, 2012. U.S. Marines returned small arms fire after they were engaged by enemy combatants.
(U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Chistopher M. Paulton / Released)
U.S. Marines with Combined Anti-Armor Team (CAAT), Weapons Company, 2D Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, conduct a satellite patrol through a poppy field in Marjah, Afghanistan, April 16, 2012. CAAT patrolled over a five day period to erect Patrol Base Sledgehammer Four and disrupt insurgent activity in the area.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. David A. Perez / Released)
Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division‘s 1st Brigade Combat Team pay respects to 1st Lt. Jonathan Walsh, and soldier, Pfc. Michael Metcalf, during a memorial on Forward Operating Base Arian, Ghazni province, Afghanistan. Walsh and Metcalf, who were killed by a roadside bomb April 22, served with 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)
A dust storm approaches a convoy of Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 11 en route to their forward operating base after a day of work on a road construction project in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
NMCB-11 is homeported in Gulfport, Miss., and is deployed to Afghanistan to conduct general, mobility, survivability engineering operations, defensive operations, Afghan National Army partnering and detachment of units in combined and joint operations area, Afghanistan.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jonathan Carmichael /Released)
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. James Routt an HC-130P pilot with the 550th Special Operations Squadron, waits to taxi after transporting two injured Afghan local nationals to Khandahar Airfield, Afghanistan for treatment, April 9, 2012.
Lt. Col. Routt is currently the oldest active pilot in the Air Force and is augmenting for the 71st Expeditionary Rescue Squadron. The mission of the 71st EQRS is to provide personnel recovery, casualty evacuation and aeromedical evacuation assets to hostile locations. The 71st EQRS is the only fixed wing aircraft squadron dedicated to medical evacuation missions in Afghanistan.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Greg C. Biondo (DVIDS)
Pfc. Justin Vnenchak, an infantryman with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, maintains security in his sector while fellow paratroopers and Afghan policemen search a compound April 8, 2012, in southern Ghazni province, Afghanistan. Vnenchak is armed with an M-4 carbine. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod.
(DVIDS)
The hardest farewell: a little boy wipes away tears as he says goodbye to his daddy. His father is getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan.
South Carolina Air National Guardsmen and active duty personnel from the 169th Fighter Wing at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, S.C., April 8th, 2012. Personnel are departing from McEntire for an Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. More than a dozen South Carolina Air National Guard F-16 fighter jets and nearly 500 personnel (pilots, maintenance specialists and support staff) will deploy for about four months.
(South Carolina Air National Guard Photo by Staff Sgt. Jorge Intriago, 169th FW Public Affairs)
Sgt. David Garcia, a Crew Chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369 and Glendale, Ariz., native, and Cpl. Dexter Moore, a Maintenance Administrative Clerk of South Hill, Va., fold an American flag while flying to Forward Operating Base Edinburgh, Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 9, 2012.
DVIDS
