 Recently, with over 80 hours of flight time, the 118th Operations Group played a crucial and unique role in a massive U.S. and Filipino exercise, which showcased the satellite launch and recovery capabilities, or SLR, of the MQ-9 Reaper. Displaying the SLR abilities at Balakaton also strengthened the growing relationship with the Philippines. There's three real advantages of being there. First, normalizing MQ-9 operations with our treaty partners in the Philippines and introducing, you know, an Indo-Pacon. I worked with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, was outstanding, seamless to working with any other customer we've had. Very proud to have been part of it. They were very accommodating in working with our airframe for the first time. Exercise Balakaton also helped foster a new chapter of cooperation between the 118th and the 163rd. Because of the way the exercise has gone down, this has been flown entirely to a guard cooperation. So the interoperability between any guard unit is a big paramount, especially in this day and age, being able to have one unit work with the iron, the other unit work with the mission set and then us come together and make the mission happen has been just awesome. Because we were able to exceed expectations with SLR and show joint forces how capable our airframe actually can be. With the progress made in SLR at Balakaton, the Reaper is one step closer to fulfilling the Agile Combat Employment Concept, or ACE, pioneered by the Department of Defense. This is the first time that we've conducted an entire fly-fly exercise exclusively to satellite launch and recovery. For us, it is being able to get aircraft into the fight without having to bring the logistical footprint that we would normally bring for such an operation and also the ability to hop to multiple locations with also a minimal footprint to be able to rearm, refuel and get back into the fight. The Reaper can't reach the ACE concept without SLR and the 118 fully demonstrated the SLR proof of concept to the DOD. Reporting on Exercise Balakaton 2023 from the 118th Wing in Nashville, Tennessee, I'm US Air National Guard Senior Airman Yannette Martin.