Marines arrive for Balikatan
Marine Corps News
Release Date: 2/22/2004
Story by Exercise Balikatan staff
SUBIC BAY, Philippines -- More than 700 U.S. Marines and Sailors from III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan arrived at Subic Bay, Philippines via the "West Pac Express" a high speed vessel, (HSV) Sunday morning, Feb. 15 to participate in exercise Balikatan 2004.
Exercise Balikatan 2004, an annual U.S. and Republic of the Philippines bilateral combined exercise, will be held in the Philippines Feb. 23 - Mar. 7. The exercise will improve combined planning, combat readiness and interoperability of the U.S. and Philippine military forces. The exercise demonstrates U.S. resolve and is consistent with the Mutual Defense Treaty and Visiting Forces Agreement.
Exercise Balikatan 2004 continues the commitment to train, advise and assist the government of the Philippines.
Exercise Balikatan 2004 will be conducted in three simultaneous phases. Phase one is a combined task force (CTF) seminar and command post exercise (CPX), which will be conducted on the island of Palawan. Phase Two is cross-training and field training exercises, which will improve the interoperability of U.S. Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Phase three is humanitarian and civic assistance, which will improve U.S./AFP military civic action cooperation and train civil-military operators to work together with a focus on civic assistance. U.S. and AFP personnel will conduct multiple medical, dental, veterinary and engineering civic action projects during this phase. Puerto Princesa, Palawan and Basco, Batanes will benefit from the civil-military operations.
Approximately 2,500 U.S. personnel and 2300 AFP personnel will participate. Exercise Balikatan 2004 is the 20th in the series of these exercises. The term Balikatan is a Tagalog word, which means, "shouldering the load together"; it characterizes the philosophy and intent of the exercise.
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