 There's something to be said about being prepared at a moment's notice. Not prepared in the sense that you know where all your gear is or how your equipment works. But being prepared in the sense that in a split second, you can make the right decision when lives are hanging in the balance. Retired United States Army Colonel David Hackworth once said, if you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly. You know, readiness is a great question. And I think in regards to this, General MacArthur said it best, that on the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on some days and some other fields are sown the seeds of victory. By definition, Red Flag Alaska is a joint coalition, air combat training exercise that corresponds to and tests the capabilities of all its cooperating and participating units. But really at its core, Red Flag is designed and created to test its most junior participants. In life, we often quantify our success by wins and losses. Red Flag Alaska is no different. You either win or you lose. It's how you look at those wins and losses that makes the difference. As an aggressor pilot, it's a different perspective to take because when bluer is winning, we're losing. But ultimately in the grand scheme of things, everybody's winning. When we are all dying and bluer is getting it, that makes me motivated and humbled because I know that the United States and its allies are the most capable of they've ever met. Red Flag Alaska isn't only about the United States pilots receiving training. Over the years, the growing integration of foreign militaries has helped the United States and partner nations share tactics and techniques and better prepare each other in the event of a real world scenario. As America is the beginning, by training in language, culture, and living environment, we can understand each other's common sense. At the same time, we can understand the difference between Japan and the United States. We also have a very big interest in the relationship between other countries. Back home, we do not have other assets like the F-16, the tankers, the F-18s, the seat players rather, readily available. So here we have all these assets provided to us to integrate together. So this allows us to learn more about how they operate and how we can get their strengths and our strengths put together to achieve mission success. The relationships and wealth of knowledge that is shared during Red Flag Alaska is simply immeasurable. But the teamwork from every member that makes each sortie happen is just as impressive. The logistics and the maintenance piece that goes into putting up Red Flag Bowl is something that is an extraordinarily complex feat to achieve. All these different elements that can synchronize all their efforts to get these aircraft airborne, typically within a one- to two-minute window is a testament to hard work and the skill that is resident here when you look out on the ramp and see all the maintainers and all those professionals out there getting those aircraft ready to fly. While the majority of us spend our time focused on jets and the air aspect of Red Flag, there's another part of the exercise that is just as important and plays a huge role in the Red Flag Alaska mission. Red Flag Alaska has evolved from primarily a fighter jet exercise into a full-fledged military exercise integrating ground forces from all services as well as partner nations. When Major General O'Neill took command of U.S. Army Alaska just about a year ago, one of his first charges to us was every training event you do needs to have air ground integration and strive for joint interoperability. And with Isles and Air Force Base in Red Flag Alaska right here, that is really when we started to lean into what was in the realm of possible. A lot of times we learn tough lessons in an operationally deployed environment because we don't do this in training enough, but I do think that there is some multi-domain battle potential here for us to really start to drive solutions and not just how we fight and introduce different services and countries capabilities, but also how we interoperate with each other in that environment. With the growing integration of ground forces comes an elite group of military forces. We don't always see them, but rest assured, special operation forces are always there and always ready. Any place, any time, anywhere. Red Flag is a unique opportunity for us because we're based out of Florida, so what it does is it gives us a chance to train in a challenging environment like Alaska. One of the other big takeaways is obviously you have all this Air Force integration that you see around. It's a chance for us to talk to multiple platforms and basically just liais with our Air Force counterparts so that way we can bring together a good fusion between the soft element on the ground and the air elements above, which is really what it's all about. You know, getting really good effects on targets, allowing special operators on the ground to leverage aviation platforms that we normally don't get to work with on a daily basis. When it really comes down to it, the evolution of Red Flag has taught us one thing. No one person, unit, or service is better than the other. It takes a total force effort to train the way we fight. So if you ever hear anyone say that they're better than anyone else, do us a favor and remind them that we all make the mission happen. No matter your job or your service, we all play a role in ensuring the United States and our partner nations never find ourselves in a fair fight.