 I am artillery 08-11. It's being a cannon year. We're working as combat support to be able to support the infantry and make sure that any issues that they're having down there will just annihilate. So to get around downrange for the 777, we have a bunch of different cannon years and we each play a role on the gun. Once a round is loaded onto the tray, we go ready drop and then we'll ram it up into the howitzer and then the number two man will close the breach and then my chief who runs the entire section will verify that everything is good, that everything is safe and he'll look at the number one man and say... Stop! Stop! Thunder is an annual artillery training exercise for the 10th Marine Regiment. This year we accomplished three key tasks. We evaluated all of our firing barriers through a top gun competition. We did a force-on-force battle and then we fought in a division level exercise. The commandant through his guidance told us to be able to fight and win against a near-peer threat via force-on-force fighting. In this case for our artillery regiment, what we did is we had two battalions fight against each other and allowed them to fight it out to be able to see who can fight, support the maneuver while at the same time executing and surviving on the battlefield. If you're looking for firepower in the battlefield, if you're looking to make a difference very quickly, artillery is the one to do that, so they are the king of battle.