 I'm Captain Joel Stewart, United States Navy. I am the commander of Naval Beach Group 1 and presently I am the commander Joint logistics over the shore during Balakatan 23. This is not my first time in the Philippines. My first time in the Philippines was 1989 I've been back several times since then pulled into Subic on a destroyer Had been able to be out and see the Philippine countryside My experience here in Casa Guran has been as expected The countryside is lovely. The people are friendly and we are excited to be here conducting Balakatan It's been phenomenal working with our Filipino partners Balakatan means shoulder to shoulder and that's exactly what we've been during this operation We've relied upon the Filipino Navy for not only waterborne security, but also movement of cargo We have partnered with the Filipino Army to provide our force protection here in camp We have employed Filipino SEALs to provide waterborne security Filipino SEBs have been assisting in camp construction and Throughout the entire process. We've been in step with our Filipino partners all of us growing as we conduct the exercise The biggest takeaway is that our partners are very capable. They have capabilities We do not have we have capabilities and capacity. They don't have and by working together We can capitalize on those to achieve our mission here Well CJ lots is joint logistics over the shore and what that means is an administrative movement of Cargo liquids and equipment over the shoreline so offloading ships and Delivering that cargo to a base camp for further distribution. That is what we have done here in Casa Guron We have brought our team in built up a 400 man camp brought in two pre-positioning ships Then proceeded to build out our camp build up our craft To move the equipment from the ships here to the beach Then we've we've accomplished that we have mission completion and now we are back loading those ships with all that same equipment This just demonstrates our ability to Conduct logistics operations without a port. There's we're going over an open beach here And that is a key capability that we need to have for any sort of either future humanitarian assistance disaster relief response or Any other military operations we want want to engage in where we don't have access to a port facility It matters significantly during this because we are demonstrating a capability in an austere and expeditionary fashion That by exercising this now we show that we can go pretty much anywhere We need to to deliver this sort of Logistics supply again to support Both military and non-military missions There are many real-life scenarios this applied to as I mentioned earlier humanitarian assistance and disaster relief Anybody looking saw the much of the equipment we offloaded is actually earth-moving and terrain-shaping equipment Not necessarily combat equipment combat equipment could certainly be moved but in order to deliver logistics you have to have Both an infrastructure to support it and a means to get it to where it has to go So that whether that be over roads or by sea We have demonstrated here the ability to do both We could push logistics out to other beaches if we needed to or push it out via roads here And that is applicable in any Situation where we may not have access to ports absolutely it's been an absolute honor to command a team of soldiers sailors and marines and Conducting this in an off-steer remote isolated Location and we not only achieved the mission, but we achieved it on time without injury without breaking equipment and Experimented with some new capabilities That will be used, you know Experiment with some new capabilities that will give us Operations or advantages and future operations So each of the services comes here with different skill sets The seabees have done what seabees do their motto is can do and they can did the camp was built in record time where I am standing this was Grasses and low shrubbery that we've been able to remove off the side of an airfield. There's an air ramp over here to my right The seabees came in with that building expertise the army came in with their expertise in tracking and moving Large quantities of material and supplies over great distances, but even more so I want to highlight the army's Watercraft, I don't want to call them sailors. They are mariners. They are licensed mariners to operate their watercraft We had some issues with our Navy craft and fuel the army was able to Help fill in that gap. It was a critical moment when the army not only operated their craft, but they were also able to operate some of my Navy craft and Move material that we couldn't move with ours because of bad fuel So that capability was a game-changer and then the Marines come in and the Marines brought the Drivers to operate the equipment to offload the vessels so without each of the moving pieces there I wouldn't have got the entire Mountain of material that's sitting at the other end of this runway moved if we had not had the expertise of the army the Navy and the Marine Corps to do it So Our presence here in Casa Geron has been an opportunity To learn about the community here learn about the area while we conduct this mission to interact with the community We have used local contractors to supply our life support requirements for the camp Our daily food is cooked in the local town and brought in We have interacted with with retailers that are operating just outside the perimeter Selling food and some souvenirs and throughout this I want to show that we are conducting this operation For the combined defense of Luzon as we have a Obligation to do based on our treaties with the Philippines We are back this year in this balacatán bigger than ever before and I think that demonstrates to our Filipino allies How committed we are to this partnership?