lance cpl. james ragan (left) and cpl. derrick levy apply emergency first aid to a simulated civilian casualty during an urban patrolling exercise at combat town aboard camp pendleton, calif., june 20, 2008. native-born iraqi role players, speaking only arabic, require marines to apply both the verbal and non-verbal iraqi language skills they've learned here in order to accomplish their mission.

a machine gunner with company e, battalion landing team 2/4, fires an m-249 squad automatic weapon during a heliborne raid here aug. 2. the long-range helicopter raid was the last training evolution the 11th marine expeditionary unit conducted during its second at-sea training period. the meu has one exercise left before deploying later this year.

lance cpl. joshua t. wagner, a rifleman with headquarters company, 7th marine regiment, loads an m-203 grenade launcher during weapons training at marine corps air ground combat center twentynine palms, calif., aug. 2. the marines of regimental combat team 7 participated in the weapons training as part of their pre-deployment training in preparation for an upcoming deployment to afghanistan.

marines assigned to the ground combat element of the 11th marine expeditionary unit, embarked amphibious dock landing ship uss rushmore (lsd 47), fast rope out of a ch-46e sea knight on to the deck of the military sealift command fleet replenishment oiler usns yukon (t-ao 202) during a visit, board, search and seizure exercise. rushmore is part of the bonhomme richard amphibious ready group and is underway conducting a composite training unit exercise (comptuex) in preparation for a scheduled deployment to the western pacific ocean later this year.