 My name is First Lieutenant Pomolfi. I am the mortar platoon leader for 227 Infantry. Today we took a Filipino 60 millimeter mortar section out to the range and we did a live fire with them, training them to shoot what's called direct lay. A direct lay is a technique to shoot the mortar when you can see the target. Once your first round drops, you correct based off of the fall of the round that you can actually see. And as long as they can see the target or see the target area, they can put accurate fire on it. Whenever we fire a mortar round, the first one is never really on target. We have to adjust it normally two to four times. They were able to achieve fire for effect within two rounds, which is very impressive. Importance of mortars are that it gives the company level of an infantry unit indirect fire capabilities. I think it's important to train with our partner nations so we can build a stronger bond and a stronger ally with our counterparts. I was able to learn new fire techniques when firing the mortar, especially direct fire. This is very important because sharing the knowledge between each other, build better an alliance between our country and United States.