 5,000 naval and ground forces from the United States, Canada, Japan and New Zealand participated in amphibious exercise Dawn Blink's 2013 on the coast of Southern California. It's a major exercise where we're getting back to our amphibious routes, we've been involved in land conflict for the past dozen years and now we're starting to focus more on amphibious operations which is really the heritage of the Navy Marine Corps team. Units from US 3rd Fleet and One Marine Expeditionary Force participated in exercises including amphibious assaults, mine operations, live fire opportunities, maritime prepositioning force training and sea basing operations. We're landing a battalion of Marines almost simultaneously out there to conduct operations deep inland. Another example of how the Navy and the Marine Corps can come across a beach, we can strike deep inland. We use the sea as maneuver space to put us at a tactical advantage over our enemies. An opportunity like this to come together with close allies and key friends throughout the Pacific region only increases that familiarity with one another. We get to exchange those tactics, techniques and procedures that we have to use on the battle space but it also builds a camaraderie. We live in a world today where we need our coalition partners operating in a joint environment and that's what this training is all about. Operation Dawn Blitz provided realistic and relevant training for effective global crisis response. It also demonstrated the Navy and Marine Corps' unique ability to coordinate with coalition partners in a variety of conditions and situations. Reporting for Navy Public Affairs Support Element West, I'm Seaman Tom Bairman.