 I'm First Lieutenant Matthew David Desjardin. I am a First Lieutenant. I am the Air Support Element OIC for Balqatan. For today, my AAC, the Air Support Element, is tasked with airspace control and management for the Sarab Airspace. We're co-located with the DASIF, the Filipino counterpart, the Direct Air Support Force, and our main goal is to conduct the proper safety of routing and safety of flight for all aircraft ingressing and egressing to Sarab in order to conduct unit-level training and close air support. Our part in Balqatan is to have the major AC-2 node, the aviation command and control node, for Sarab in order to enable joint and bilateral aircraft to conduct close-level training with close air support missions and unit-level training. The biggest challenge with site location, we are in a valley, Crow's Valley itself, and it's very difficult for our communication radio systems to get proper line of sight contact with aircraft coming in and out, but we have mitigated that by placing ourselves at a reasonable distance from above ground so we can have good line of sight over the entire valley. The Filipino Armed Forces, they're very austere and they're very down to earth. The Filipino Armed Forces, they're extremely similar to how the Marine Corps operates such as fighting and training in a difficult environment. They have the same attitude and they're so hospitable in terms of working with the partner nations especially the United States Marine Corps. Specifically for the air support element, it's for us to get with their controllers, their aircraft controllers, and talk on our procedural control methods which allow us to, one, coordinate what controlling agency can handle aircraft at a point in time and sequence certain events so there's no, so there's a proper methodology of aircraft coming in on station, getting the proper briefing and safety of flight through their objective and on the way out so we're all tracking on a safe and controlled environment. The 13th Mew participated by providing aircraft for both CAS and ASR to one conduct joint training with both the Filipinos and other Marine Corps agencies, Marine Corps units and joint forces such as the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. Definitely the heat. The heat is definitely a big thing that we're going to encounter in the Indo-Pacific AO but overall Marine Corps has always been fighting in a steer environment so that is something that we'll just easily get over as time goes on. Well, the biggest thing is the language barrier. Fortunately for us, the Filipinos have a very good essay on the English language so, but for other nations and other countries that we'll work with in the future, it's paramount for us to one, just synchronize or come together, come up with a solid plan and move on forward. It allows us to establish a relationship to foster with the community and the armed forces themselves. By us working together now to encounter any sort of threat in the AO, we'll be able to come together, already have the TTPs and standard operating procedures set and we'll be able to go off those training and techniques and move on to the fight.