In the not-too-distant future, Marine Corps 7-ton trucks may be able to diagnose worn-out parts before they go bad, put in an order for a relevant replacement and get the part 3D printed and shipped to their location to be installed — all without a human in the loop.

It’s an aspiration that illustrates the possibilities of smart logistics, said Lt. Gen. Michael Dana, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for Installations and Logistics (I&L). And the process has already begun to make it a reality.

In the fall of 2016, Marines at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri equipped about 20 military vehicles, including Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements, known as MTVRs or 7-tons, and massive tractor-trailers known as Logistics Vehicle System Replacements, or LVSRs, with engine sensors designed to anticipate and identify key parts failures.

It’s a commercially available technology that some civilian vehicles already use, but it’s a new capability for Marine Corps trucks. Testing on those sensors will wrap-up this summer, and officials with I&L will assess how accurately and thoroughly the sensors captured and transmitted maintenance data.

If all goes well, the Marines then will work to connect the sensors with an automatic system that can order parts that will then be 3D printed on demand and delivered to the vehicle’s unit.

“How do we use that data and how do we link that back to our fabrication or supply network to make the system operate in theory without a person in the loop, so make sure we’re doing push logistics [versus] pull logistics,” said Lt. Col. Howard Marotto, a senior member of the Marine Corps’ logistics innovation team and the service’s additive manufacturing lead. “Now we have the part there waiting when the vehicle gets back in from the convoy, or it’s already there a week in advance before we know we need to change it out. So that’s the concept and that’s what we’re going to try to prove with that.”

Dana, who spoke with Military.com in June, is eager to bypass maintenance supply chains that sometimes have gear traveling thousands of miles to get to a unit downrange, and inefficient logistics systems that create lag while maintainers wait for parts to arrive.

“If we had the ability to print a part far forward, which we have that capability, that reduces your order-to-ship time. And you then combine that with what we call sense-and-respond logistics, or smart logistics, which is … it can tell you with a predictive capability that this part is going to fail in the next 20 hours or the next ten hours,” Dana said.

The goal of having trucks that can do everything but self-install repair parts is in keeping with the Marine Corps’ newfound love affair with innovative technology. The Corps recently became the first military service to send 3D printers to combat zones with conventional troops, so that maintainers could print everything from 81mm mortar parts to pieces of radios in hours, instead of waiting days or longer for factory-made parts to arrive.

For Dana, it’s simply time for the Marine Corps to cash in on technologies that industry is already using to advantage.

“You look at Tesla, their vehicles literally get automatic upgrades; it’s almost like a vehicle computer that’s driving around,” he said. “My wife’s [2006 Lexus] will tell you when it’s due for an oil change. That predictive capability exists in the private sector. Hopefully we can incorporate it on the military side.”

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Cameras recording President Donald Trump's exit from the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, caught a light-hearted moment as Trump tried not once, but twice to retrieve a Marine's hat.

As Trump approached the presidential helicopter, Marine One, the strong winds from the rotors blew off the hat of one of the Marines assigned to the president. Trump, apparently amused, clapped as he bent over to pick up the hat, and place it back on the Marine's head.

But the wind blew it off again. 

Watch the full clip below:

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After graduating high school, Andrew Wittman was supposed follow to his parents into missionary work.

But he realized he wanted something completely different.

"I was the fat kid in high school that always got bullied, but I was never allowed to fight back," Wittman tells Business Insider. "I didn't want to live my life like that, so I joined the Marine Corps."

During his stint in boot camp, he picked up a morning habit that's stayed with him ever since.

"I was on the top bunk, so my face was six inches away from the double fluorescent light," Wittman tells Business Insider. "What they would do every morning is flip the lights on and throw steel garbage cans down the center of the room. On the first day, I was like, 'Oh my God.'"

To avoid the shocking wake-up call, Wittman trained himself to always wake up two minutes early. For example, if he has a 5:30 a.m. wake up, he'll get out of bed at 5:28 a.m.

After getting through boot camp, Wittman served in the Marine Corps for six years and saw combat during the invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm. After leaving the military, he went on to become a US Capitol Police special agent, and protected big name members of Congress, including Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Lieberman.

Nowadays, Wittman is the CEO of The Mental Toughness Training Center and author of "Ground Zero Leadership: CEO of You." He says that he sets himself up for success every morning by spending his extra two minutes on a daily affirmation.

"I get my 'boardroom' — my mind, body, and emotions — to all act in concert," Wittman says. "Every day, I remind everybody who's in charge. I'm the CEO of me. I'm in charge. I want the mind running the 'boardroom', but it's not that the emotions and the body don't have places — they have very important roles."

Wittman says that by kicking the day off with this ritual, he's able to mentally prime himself for success.

Forbes reports that the average human brain takes in about 11 million pieces of information per second. 

"If I wake up thinking today's going suck, my brain will literally filter all that information, find the exact bits of information to prove myself right, and now it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," he says. "Every morning, I'm force-feeding my filter. I'm making sure that it's the 11 million bits that I want."

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A high school student who dreamed for years of joining the military and had just enlisted in the Marines was killed when a spinning and swinging thrill ride broke apart and sent several of its passengers tumbling onto the midway at the Ohio State Fair.

The 18-year-old's girlfriend was among seven who were badly injured when the Fire Ball flung riders — some still strapped in their seats — through the air.

A few people on the midway were hit by debris.

The ride's Dutch manufacturer on Thursday told operators of the same attraction at fairs and festivals worldwide to stop using it until more is learned about what caused the malfunction.

Federal and state investigators have begun working to find what caused the wreck on Wednesday, the fair's opening day.

Video taken by a bystander of the swinging, spinning Fire Ball ride in action captured a crashing sound. A section holding four riders came apart, and screams could be heard as at least two people were ejected and plunged toward the ground. Other riders were still in their seats as they fell.

Tyler Jarrell, of Columbus, was thrown about 50 feet (15 meters) and pronounced dead on the midway. The Marine Corps and school officials said Jarrell enlisted last week and was going to begin basic training after his high school graduation next year.

"That was just this past Friday. Then he goes to the state fair and he is involved in this horrible tragedy. It's just devastating," said Capt. Gerard Lennon Jr., a naval science instructor in the Junior ROTC program at Jarrell's high school.

Lennon said the teenager had been interested in going into the service or law enforcement for quite a while.

The injured ranged in age from 14 to 42. At least two were listed in critical condition.

Jarrell's girlfriend, Keziah Lewis, doesn't remember the accident and has pelvis, ankle and rib injuries, her mother told The Columbus Dispatch.

Lewis, a University of Cincinnati student, underwent one surgery and faces a second.

"She kept asking for her boyfriend," Clarissa Williams said. "I had to tell her he was the one who was deceased."

Inspectors looked over the ride while it was assembled and signed off on it hours before it flew apart, according to authorities and records released Thursday.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich shut down all rides at the fair and ordered them inspected again. He said it was too early to say whether inspectors missed something that led to the tragedy.

"It's a nightmare. It's a terrible situation," he said.

The ride's manufacturer, KMG, said the one at the Ohio fair was built in 1998. Forty-three of the rides, also known as the Afterburner, are in use around the world, 11 of them in the U.S., according to KMG. None has had a serious malfunction before, the company told the AP.

The Fire Ball swings 24 riders back and forth like a pendulum 40 feet (12 meters) above the ground while they sit facing each other in four-seat carriages that spin at 13 revolutions a minute, according to the company's website.

Records show that inspections on Fire Ball were up to date and a state permit was issued for the ride on Wednesday, the fair's opening day.

Ohio Department of Agriculture records provided to The Associated Press showed passing marks on inspections of about three dozen items, including possible cracks, brakes, proper assembly and installation.

All rides at the fair are checked several times when they are being set up to ensure the work is done the way the manufacturer intended, said Agriculture Director David Daniels.

Michael Vartorella, Ohio's chief inspector of amusement ride safety, said the Fire Ball was inspected three or four times before the fair opened.

Amusements of America, the company that provides rides to the state fair, said its staff also had inspected the ride before it opened.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is also investigating. It estimates there were 30,900 injuries associated with amusement attractions last year that required an emergency room visit.

It said there have been at least 22 fatalities associated with amusement attractions since 2010.

The Ohio State Fair, which remained open Thursday, is one of the biggest state fairs in the U.S. It drew 900,000 people last year.

"Our hearts are heavy for the families of those involved in last night's tragic accident," fair officials said on Twitter.

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What the heck are we doing in Afghanistan right now?

I ask this very important question because President Donald Trump's senior advisers are proposing sending thousands of additional US troops there so they can "start winning" again, according to one official who spoke with The Washington Post.

That would be great if the word "winning" could be defined.

Let's put this into perspective: Since October 2001, the United States has had a military presence in Afghanistan.

Over nearly 16 years of war, more than 2,200 service members have been killed, and more than 20,000 have been wounded. We have spent almost $1 trillion there.

We have paid a heavy price for a loosely defined end.

After 9/11, we went into Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda and the Taliban so we could deny them a safe haven. But in 2004, when I was on the ground as a US Marine, the job I was given was a simpler one: drive around in the hope you get shot at. That's how we found the enemy.

Fortunately, Trump has been deeply skeptical of his top military advisors — and that's actually a good thing. As I expressed recently on Twitter, the generals will give you rosy assessments; the sergeants will give you the truth.

A reality check

For years, we have been offered rosy assessments from the military's top commanders in Afghanistan. Gen. John Abizaid said in 2005 that "interesting progress" had been made. Gen. Dan McNeill said in 2007 that we were making "significant progress." And Gen. David Petraeus highlighted the progress made in 2010.

In 2013, Gen. John Allen said we were "on the road to winning" in Afghanistan.

Reality check: We're not. And we probably never will be. The war in Afghanistan has been a lost cause for a long time.

It's not a "stalemate," as the Pentagon has taken to characterizing it. The latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, released in February 2016, shows the situation has been deteriorating, especially since troop levels were lowered significantly after 2011.

I remember driving around Kabul in early 2005. We were stuck at an Army base near the city getting some Humvees repaired, so my gunnery sergeant decided to take us on a little tour of the city.

We drove through the bustling streets, went to the "boneyard" of old Soviet planes and tanks, and visited the training academy for Afghan National Army soldiers. Soon after the invasion, he said, he had helped set up the academy to train Afghan troops.

The US military can train a civilian off the street and turn them into a highly capable soldier or Marine in about three months. But we still can't claim Afghan security forces are a "strong, sustainable force" after training them for 15 years.

It's hard to see that changing anytime soon.

I don't want to "lose" in Afghanistan. There may still be options to turn the situation around, though its nickname as the "graveyard of empires" may prove true once again. But the way forward is not to send in a few thousand more soldiers who would inevitably feed failure.

The war requires a full, independent review of the situation — and, most importantly, realistic goals and a clear strategy for achieving them.

This is our forever war, and I can guarantee those 3,000 troops would slowly but surely increase, just as our troop levels have increased in Iraq and Syria since 2014.

When "the enemy is digging a hole, don't stop them," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told an interviewer in 2014. "Let them continue to dig themselves into the hole."

We should not, as Mattis knows, keep digging ourselves into a hole we can never get out of.

I don't know how or if this war will end. But I know what comes next: more flag-draped coffins landing at Dover, mothers crying over children they have lost, and tribute posts for years to come in honor of our brothers and sisters who never came back.

That's not a strategy in Afghanistan.

But it is the reality.

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Simon Sinek is the author of four books, including his latest, "Leaders Eat Last." Sinek sat down with Business Insider to discuss how the Marines embody leadership as a culture. Following is a transcript of the video.

It chokes me up every time when I hear stories of sacrifice and so I seek them out I seek out those people and I seek out those stories because it gives me fuel to keep doing what I do. 

Well there’s many lessons we can learn from the Marine Corps.

The title of the book “Leaders Eat Last” came from a conversation I actually had with a Marine it was a three-star general who’s in charge of all Marine Corps training officer and enlisted and I asked him when I was talking to him a very simple question - what makes Marines so good at what they do? And he answered simply “officers eat last”

And if you visit any chow hall in any Marine base anywhere in the world what you will see when they eat at chow time is that all the Marines will line up in rank order. The most junior Marine will always eat first, the most senior Marine will always eat last. No order is given, there is no rule that says they will have to do this and nobody tells them they have to. It’s one of the funny ways that it manifests when we see their perspective on leadership how it shows up - it’s just one of the funny ways it shows up because they view leadership as a responsibility, not as a rank. It’s not about being in charge it’s about taking care of those in your charge. That’s what leadership really is and the Marines embody it as a culture and it’s sort of kind of amazing to see actually. 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US Navy and Marine Corps suspended their search and rescue efforts for three US Marines missing after their aircraft crashed into the sea off Australia's east coast on Saturday, the US Marine Corps said.

The Marine Corps said they shifted their operations to recovery efforts in coordination with the Australian Defence Force, which could last several months, and notified the next-of-kin for the three missing Marines.

Twenty-three other personnel aboard the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft had been rescued, the III Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, Japan, said in a statement early Sunday.

(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Mary Milliken)

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The three US Marines who were killed in an Osprey crash off the coast of Australia on Saturday evening have been identified. 

1st Lt. Benjamin R. Cross, 26, of Maine; Cpl. Nathaniel F. Ordway, 21, of Kansas; and Pfc. Ruben P. Velasco, 19, of Los Angeles were killed after the MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft in which they were riding crashed, according to a Marine Corps press statement.

The Osprey was trying to land on the USS Green Bay about 18 miles off the Shoalwater Bay Training Area, in Queensland, Australia when it crashed, the Marine Corps and CBS said. The 23 other Marines onboard the aircraft were saved. 

The US Navy and Marine Corps, with help from the Australian Defence Force, unsuccessfully searched for the 3 Marines until 3 am on Sunday morning, the Marine Corps said. 

Cross had been awarded with National Defense Service Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

He was described by his brother as having “the highest moral character — just the most caring, compassionate, empathetic individual I've ever met. He would do anything for anybody that needed it, so selfless, devoted to his family and devoted to his duty in the Marine Corps, "according to the Oxford Hills Sun Journal. 

Velasco had been awarded with the National Defense Service Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and was said to have loved his family, girlfriend and being a Marine, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Orday had also been decorated with National Defense Service Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, as well as the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon.

“The loss of every Marine is felt across our entire Marine Corps family. To the families of the brave Marines we lost – there is no way for us to understand what you are going through,” Col. Tye R. Wallace said in the press statement.

“What we do know is that your Marines left a lasting impression on the 31st MEU, the Marine Corps, and the world. They will live on forever in our thoughts and our hearts. You will always be a part of the Marine Corps family, and you will remain in our prayers.”

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Marine officials say the Corps for the first time is eyeing a plan to let women attend combat training in Southern California. If approved by Marine leaders, the change could happen next spring.

It could be the first step in a broader campaign to give male Marines who go through training on the West Coast the chance to work with female colleagues early in their career.

Officials say Marine leaders are also considering allowing women to attend boot camp in San Diego. Currently women attend boot camp and combat training in South Carolina. Men go there or in San Diego.

The proposal was described by officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

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Nineteen. That’s how many Marines the U.S. armed forces have lost in the past 30 days alone. And none of them were felled by combat.

Lance Cpl. Cody J. Haley, 20, was the latest, killed by a falling tree on Camp Pendleton on August 4. He preceded a lieutenant, a corporal, and a privatekilled in an MV-22 crash in the Pacific off Australia on August 5. They followed 15 Marines and a sailor, mostly special operators, killed when their C-130 broke apart over Mississippi on a clear Tuesday in mid-July.

On their own, these accidents are tragic, but they also punctuate an alarming trend: Marines in July and August died in non-hostile situations at a frequency that’s nearly 10 times the rate of non-hostile deaths in Afghanistan since the war started there. It’s five times higher than the non-hostile death rate for all U.S. service members in Operation Iraqi Freedom— including training and transport mishaps in Kuwait and other staging areas for the war effort.

You could chalk it up to one bad month. A tree limb striking an exercising Marine is a freak occurrence. Aviation mishaps are increasingly frequent and can easily drive up non-combat fatalities in a single incident or two.

But the Corps, which did not respond to Task & Purpose’s request for comment, has had more than just a bad couple of weeks. Its aviation troubles are well-known, from the Harrier crash that led III MEF’s commander to announce “a temporary operational pause” last year to the collision of two Sea Stallions that killed 12 Marines in early 2016 to the Black Hawk that went down with its entire crew in 2015, decimating the same Marine Raider unit that lost so many personnel in last month’s C-130 crash. The Marines’ aircraft mishap rate was twice as high as the Navy’s in 2016; in fact, the Corps’ mishap rate has doubled since 2012.

Then there are the ground-training mishaps, like the death of Lance Corporal Austin J. Ruiz, 19, of Naples, Florida, who was killed in January in a live-fire training exercise at Twentynine Palms. Or the seven Marines killed in a Nevada mortar-training exercise gone awry in 2014. Which was a year before 22 Marines on an exercise in Hawaii literally had the oxygen pulled out of their lungs when the halon system triggered on their amphibious assault vehicle. (They were treated for minor injuries and survived.)

And of course, there is the legendarily challenging recruit training depot at Parris Island, where a Muslim-American recruit died of a fall under mysterious circumstances last year, and his death exposed a culture of hazing that’s grown worse, not better, in recent years. Despite the Corps’ efforts to tackle gratuitous abuse, the apparently self-inflicted injuries continue. Last October, a recruit jumped from a building and put himself in a coma, where he remains today. He was followed by another roof-jumper, a recruit who was hospitalized after his fall last month. (One could easily add to these incidents the Corps’ long struggles with suicide in the ranks, as well.)

It’s not unheard of for recruits to die in boot camp — nor is it unheard of for their deaths to expose deeper problems in the institutions that recruited them. Training for combat can be as hazardous as combat — although the “perceived sense of urgency” that Marines demand of themselves can, itself, become a killer. And military aviation is inherently dangerous — but should it be this dangerous?

Marines die. They stand rough and ready to do serious damage to those who would harm us. But that’s no excuse for complacency when young men and women in their 20s and 30s pledge their industry, their honor, their bodies to the service… and get ground up at ridiculous rates in non-combat operations. It’s a break of trust with the victims and their survivors — not just in the blood family, but in the service family, too.

“The difficult we do immediately,” elite troops like to say. “The impossible takes a little longer.” It may be difficult to make training for hell inherently safe, b. But it’s impossible to believe the Corps is content with so many non-combat deaths. It’s no use fighting for right and freedom, as the song goes, if you can’t keep your honor clean. To do that, a service that excels at breaking shit needs to do a better job of keeping its volunteers in one piece.

SEE ALSO: 3 Marines killed in Osprey crash off the coast of Australia have been identified

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The USS Kearsarge Amphibious Assault Ship carries 2,000 Marines to and from their missions along with their equipment and weapons. 

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When Dave Berke was a kid, he imagined himself flying an F-18 off an aircraft carrier.

By the time he retired as a US Marine officer in 2016, he had not only done that, but he'd also flown an F-16, F-22, and F-35, taught at the elite Top Gun fighter pilot school, and served a year on the ground alongside Navy SEALs in the 2006 Battle of Ramadi as a forward air controller.

Today he's a member of Echelon Front, a leadership consulting firm started by two of those SEALs, Task Unit Bruiser commander Jocko Willink and one of his platoon commanders, Leif Babin.

Berke has spent the past year sharing lessons from his 23-year military career, and we asked him what insights were at the heart of his leadership philosophy. He shared with us two lessons he learned as a teenager, long before he ever saw combat.

They're lessons he said became not only the foundation of his service, but his entire life, and they're ones he's had reinforced repeatedly.

Set specific goals and develop detailed paths to them.

Berke's mom Arlene had become used to hearing her young son talk about how he wished he could fly fighter jets one day.

She told him that he needed understand that the role of a fighter pilot was a real job, one that existed outside of his daydreams. Berke said her message boiled down to: "You could sit there and think about wanting to be a pilot. By the time you're 25 somebody will be doing that job. Spend less time fantasizing about it, spend less time dreaming about it, and spend more time coming up with a plan."

Berke took it to heart, and in retrospect, probably took his mom's advice even more intensely than she had intended. By 15 he knew that his goal was to fly F-18s off aircraft carriers and be stationed in Southern California. He wouldn't go the more traditional Navy route, either, but would join the Marines and become an officer.

The Marines have fewer pilots, but even their pilots go through the same training as all other Marines. He wanted the best of both worlds, and to have his goal be as challenging as possible.

He accepted that he might not make this a reality, but decided he would act as though there were no alternative.

At 17, he met with a recruiting officer to nail down everything he needed to do to make his vision a reality, giving him a year to think about the resulting timeline before signing up for the Marine Corps.

"It keeps you disciplined because the risk of not doing all the things you need to do is failure," he said about this timeline approach. "It's a failure that you have nobody else to blame but yourself."

Mental toughness is more important than abilities.

Berke said that he's never been the biggest or strongest guy among his friends in the military, and as an 18-year-old, he was thin and average height.

He arrived at the Marine Corps Base Quantico for officer candidate school scared and intimidated. "I looked around and everybody else around me looked bigger, tougher, stronger, faster, and seemed to be more qualified than me to do that job," he said.

But as the days went by, he would be surprised to see some of his fellow candidates break under pressure. A guy next to him that he knew was naturally a better athlete than he was wouldn't be able to keep up in fitness trials, but it was because he didn't share the drive that Berke had developed for years.

"As they started to fail, I started to realize that the difference between success and failure was mental toughness," he said.

He became an officer. Next was the Basic School, where he would be given his role in the Marine Corps. He was one of 250 new officers, and there were only two pilot spots for his class.

"There's no way I'm going to let somebody else work harder, be more committed, be more disciplined, and outperform me in that environment to accomplish what they want at my expense," he thought. "It's not going to happen."

The same mindset is what got him through the chaos of Iraq 15 years later, when a plane didn't separate him from the fighting on the ground.

"There's no Plan B to losing in combat," he said.

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Humans apparently aren't the only ones breaking glass ceilings. 

The Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina just received it's first female mascot, according to the Marine Corps Times. 

The English bulldog, Opha Mae, is named after the first female Marine — Opha Mae Johnson, who enlisted in 1918, according to the Beaufort Gazette. 

She is “currently a poolee,” Marine Capt. Adam Flores told the Beaufort Gazette, “and will begin recruit training in the near future."Opha Mae will be the 21st such mascot, but her starting date is currently unknown.

She will eventually take over duties, which include attending ceremonies and graduations, from Cpl. Legend, who is in poor health, the Beaufort Gazette said. 

Here's a video of Opha Mae: 

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First-person shooter is one of the most popular perspectives among gamers, but these simulations can be used for much more than entertainment — specifically military training.

And thanks to new the Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer III, Marine Corps marksmen are about to take their sharpshooting skills to a whole new level.

Though the Corps has been using virtual reality to train Marines for two decades, the systems for marksmanship have become exponentially better.

With the ISMT III, Marines have access to multiple weapons: the M9 service pistol, M4 carbine, and wireless weapons, including the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, M32A1 Multi-Shot Grenade Launcher and M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon.

This latest iteration, modeled off the Firearms Training Simulator (FATS), also boasts three-dimensional projections and features enhanced training modes, “giving Marines a better, more realistic training experience as they prepare for the complexities of modern warfare,” the release said.

In 2016, Marine Corps Times reported that the system’s immersive high-fidelity sound and visuals will help close the gap between the inherent limitations of an indoor simulation and the real thing.

“In the evolution of this training system, it went from a specific one to two weapon system and now pretty much covers the full spectrum of small arms weapons that are used by the Marine Corps today,” Chief Warrant Officer 4 Matthew Harris, the ISMT III project officer, said in a Marine Corps press release. “ISMT helps to build fundamentals of muscle memory for Marines so that when they hit the range, they are ready to respond to real-life scenarios.”

The reason the Marine Corps is investing so heavily in simulation technology is that it helps build muscle memory without costing millions.

Herbert Gray, the director of the MCIPAC Tactical Training and Simulation Support Center, told the Marines in 2016 that he believes repeated practice in realistic combat simulations allows them to develop automatic responses to a broader array of scenarios.

“It’s better to drop bombs in a simulated environment than to drop bombs on a range all over the place,” Gray said. “It saves us a lot of money.”

The Corps has ordered 490 ISMT III systems destined for major Marine Corps bases, reserve duty sites, amphibious transport docks, and amphibious assault ships worldwide, according to the release. So far, 200 have been distributed, with all land installations to be completed by September 2018.

In recent years, the Corps has invested heavily in simulation across a number of different aspects of training. Beginning in 2017, officials began distributing the Marine Tactical Decision Kit, an augmented reality system designed to put infantry Marines through the rigors of battle without ever leaving their barracks. And the same is now essentially being done with marksmanship training.

“Marksmanship is embedded in the Marine Corps,” said Carrillo. “As technology advances and weapons get better and more accurate, we need to teach Marines how to use those weapons and improve their marksmanship, so that we can continue to be the best marksmen the military can offer.”

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Deep within the mountains of Gifu Prefecture, in a small farming village hidden away from the fast-paced city life, the family of a fallen Japanese soldier eagerly waited for the return of a precious heirloom. For the first time in 73 years, the Yasue family can finally receive closure for the brother that never came home from war. 

World War II veteran Marvin Strombo traveled 10,000 miles from his quiet home in Montana to the land of the rising sun to personally return a Japanese flag he had taken from Sadao Yasue during the Battle of Saipan in June 1944. 

The U.S. Marine Corps veteran carried the flag with him decades after his time serving as a scout sniper with 6th Marine Regiment, Second Marine Division. He cared for the flag meticulously and never once forgot the promise he made to Yasue as he took the flag from him in the midst of war.

As a young corporal, Strombo looked up from his position on the battlefield, he noticed he became separated from his squad behind enemy lines. As he started heading in the direction of the squad’s rally point, he came across a Japanese soldier that lay motionless on the ground. 

“I remember walking up to him,” said Strombo. “He was laying on his back, slightly more turned to one side. There were no visible wounds and it made it look almost as if he was just asleep. I could see the corner of the flag folded up against his heart. As I reached for it, my body didn’t let me grab it at first. I knew it meant a lot to him but I knew if I left it there someone else might come by and take it. The flag could be lost forever. I made myself promise him, that one day, I would give back the flag after the war was over.”

As years went on, Strombo kept true to his promise to one day deliver the heirloom. It was not until the fateful day he acquainted himself with the Obon Society of Astoria, Oregon, that he found a way to Yasue’s family. 

Through the coordination of the Obon Society, both families received the opportunity to meet face-to-face to bring what remained of Yasue home. 

Sadao’s younger brother, Tatsuya Yasue, said his brother was a young man with a future to live. When Sadao was called upon to go to war, his family gave him this flag as a symbol of good fortune to bring him back to them. Getting this flag back means more to them than just receiving an heirloom. It’s like bringing Sadao’s spirit back home.

Tatsuya was accompanied by his elder sister Sayoko Furuta and younger sister Miyako Yasue to formally accept the flag. As Tatsuya spoke about what his brother meant to not only his family but the other members of the community, he reminisced over the last moments he had with him before his departure. 

Tatsuya said his family received permission to see Sadao one last time, so they went to him. He came down from his living quarters and sat with them in the grass, just talking. When they were told they had five more minutes, Sadao turned to his family and told them that it seemed like they were sending him to somewhere in the Pacific. He told them he probably wasn’t coming back and to make sure they took good care of their parents. That was the last time Tatsuya ever spoke to his brother.

As Strombo and Yasue exchanged this simple piece of cloth from one pair of hands to the next, Strombo said he felt a sense of relief knowing that after all these years, he was able to keep the promise he made on the battlegrounds of Saipan. 

The reunion also held more emotional pull as it took place during the Obon holiday, a time where Japanese families travel back to their place of origin to spend time with loved ones.

Although Strombo never fought alongside Yasue, he regarded him almost as a brother. They were both young men fighting a war far from home. He felt an obligation to see his brother make it home, back to his family, as he had made it back to his own. Strombo stayed true to his word and honored the genuine Marine spirit to never leave a man behind. 

SEE ALSO: The Medal of Honor hero known as a 'one-man Marine Corps' has died

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The US military has over 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 450,000 of them stationed overseas.

Many of these stationed service members perform training exercises and other duties at rather safe bases. Then there are others who are deployed to conflict zones like Syria or Iraq or potential "hotspots" like Somalia.

We pulled together the numbers and units from around the military to show you where service members are engaged.

SEE ALSO: After multiple deployments, US special forces may have 'mortgaged the future'

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US troops are deployed in hotspots around the world, including places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Here's a look at some of the most significant deployments for American soldiers.

In Afghanistan, about 8,400 US troops, most of which are US Army soldiers, are authorized to take part in Resolute Support, which aims to train, advise, and assist the Afghan security forces and institutions in their fight against the Taliban and other terrorist networks.

A new report, however, recently revealed that there are actually about 12,000 US troops in the country. The Pentagon then said on Aug. 30 that about 11,000 US troops are in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, about 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers are taking part in Operation Inherent Resolve, which aims to eliminate the Islamic State. Only 5,262 US troops are authorized to be in Iraq, but the actual numbers have been larger for a while as commanders leverage what they call temporary — or "nonenduring"— assignments like the one involving the 82nd Airborne in Mosul.

In Syria, 500 US special forces and 250 Rangers are working in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. The Pentagon is also mulling sending an additional 1,000 US service members to the war-torn country.

A new BuzzFeed News report, however, also said that there are really about 2,000 US forces in Syria — about 850 (including US Marines) then previously thought.

In Kuwait, about 15,000 soldiers are spread among Camp Arifjan, Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base, and Ali Al Salem Air Base. About 3,800 soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team also deployed there late last year.

In Poland, about 3,500 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division's 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team are stationed as part of Atlantic Resolve, which seeks to halt Russian aggression. These soldiers will help train local forces and provide security, eventually fanning out to other countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary to do the same.

In Ukraine, approximately 250 Oklahoma National Guardsmen are training Ukrainian forces in support of Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine.

In Somalia, about 40 US soldiers from the 101st Airborne division are assisting the central government in training its forces and fighting the terrorist group al-Shabab.

Of the US Navy's seven fleets, three are deployed in or near potential hotspots around the world.

The U.S. Marine Corps air and ground attack operations will be fortified by a new high-tech, heavy-lift helicopter designed to triple the payload of previous models, maneuver faster and perform a wider range of missions by the early 2020s, a Pentagon announcement said.

The Navy and Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky will now build the first two CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopters as part of a new $300 million Low-Rate-Initial-Production deal.  

CH-53 helicopters, currently operating from Navy amphibious assault ships, are central to maritime and land assault, re-supply, cargo and other kinds of heavy-lift missions. 

The new "K" model CH-53 helicopter is engineered to lift 27,000 pounds, travel 110 nautical miles, before staying 30 minutes on station and then be able to return under high hot conditions. The existing “E” model CH-53 can only carry 9,000 pounds.

“This contract will benefit our Marine Corps’ ‘heavy lifters’ for decades to come. Future Marines, not even born yet, will be flying this helicopter well into the future,” U.S. Marine Corps. Col. Hank Vanderborght, Naval Air Systems Command program manager for Heavy Lift Helicopters program said in service statement. 

The idea with the helicopter is to engineer a new aircraft with much greater performance compared to the existing CH-53 E or “Echo” model aircraft designed in the 80’s.

Higher temperatures and higher altitudes create a circumstance wherein the decreased air-pressure makes it more difficult for helicopters to fly and carry payloads. “High-Hot” conditions are described as being able to operate at more than 6,000 ft at temperatures greater than 90-degrees Fahrenheit.

An on-board refueling system is engineered into the helicopter to extend mission range in high-risk areas too dangerous for a C-130 to operate, developers said.

The requirement for the “K” model CH-53 emerged out of a Marine Corps study which looked at the combat aviation elements of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force, or MAGTF.

Engineers with the “K” program are using a handful of new technologies to achieve greater lift, speed and performance with the helicopter, including the integration of a new, more powerful GE 38 turboshaft engine for the aircraft.

“Fuel consumption of the engine is 25-percent improved. On a pure technology level it is about a 25-percent improvement in fuel efficiency,” Dr. Michael Torok, Sikorsky’s CH-53K program vice president, told Scout Warrior in a previous interview.

The helicopter is also being built with lighter-weight composite materials for the airframe and the rotorblades, materials able to equal or exceed the performance of traditional metals at a much lighter weight, said Torok.

“Technology allowed us to design a largely all-composite skinned airframe. There are some primary frames titanium and aluminum. Beam structure and all the skins are all composite. Fourth generation rotorblades are a combination of new airfoils, taper and a modification of the tip deflection of the blade. It is an integrated cuff and the tip geometries are modified to get additional performance,” Torok added.

The helicopter will also be configured with Directional Infrared Countermeasures, or DIRCM, a high-tech laser-jammer designed to throw incoming missiles off course. DIRCM uses sensor technology to identify and thwart fast-approaching enemy fire such as shoulder-fired weapons.

The CH-53 K uses a split-torque transmission design that transfers high-power, high-speed engine output to lower-speed, high-torque rotor drive in a weight efficient manner.

“With the split torque you take the high-speed inputs from the engine and you divide it up into multiple pieces with multiple gear sets that run in parallel,” Torok said.

The K model will be a “fly by wire” capable helicopter and also use the latest in what’s called conditioned-based maintenance, a method wherein diagnostic sensors are put in place to monitor systems on the aircraft in order to better predict and avert points of mechanical failure.

SEE ALSO: The Air Force got parts from its 'boneyard' to put its biggest plane back into service

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While there may not be a lot of downtime at sea, sailors and Marines make the most of their time off with "swim calls." 

During these events, they are given permission to swim near the US vessel while onlookers keep an eye out for sharks. 

We've collected 21 photos showing that the US Navy and US Marine Corps have the best diving boards and swimming pools.

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A sailor from the USS Mobile Bay jumps into the Pacific Ocean.

Sailors assigned to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey swim in the Philippine Sea.

Sailors and Marines aboard the USS Essex run into the Celebes Sea.

Combat veteran Andrew Wittman was an infantry Marine for 6 years. Wittman is the author of "Ground Zero Leadership: CEO of You," and coaches Fortune 500 CEO's and top executives. Here, Wittman explains why setting goals can be a complete waste of time. Following is a transcript of the video. 

Setting goals is the biggest waste of time on planet Earth. People are shocked when I say that. Setting goals is a complete waste of time if you don't have a target destination. So I say it like this: Have you ever gone on a vacation and you didn't know where you were going? And if that ever happened, how did you pack? 

So I don't know where I'm going. Here's my goals. I'm going to set goals of getting a surfboard, getting skis, getting hunting rifles, getting fishing rods. OK, all those took time to research, I spent resources, I got them, "Yay, I accomplished my goals.""Where you going?""We're going rock climbing." Right? So, these goals did not help me. 

In fact, I wasted valuable hours of my life and valuable resources I could have spent getting me to my destination on stuff that was a complete waste. So now think of it like this: If I said, "We're going to Rome in 2 weeks." All the goals self-populate. 

What do we need to do? We've got to get our passport and visa. We've got to get plane tickets. We've got to get a hotel. We've got to figure out where we're going to eat — and what we're going to go see. So the goals self-populate. So stop wasting time trying to come up with goals. Just come up with a destination and a target of where you want to be and all your goals will self-populate. 

Produced by Eames Yates

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published on June 9, 2017.

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• The trial for a former Marine instructor charged with cruelty and maltreatment began this week.
• The instructor, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, has been accused of punching, choking, and kicking recruits at Parris Island.
• Felix is also accused of targeting Muslim recruits, calling them "ISIS" and "terrorist" and forcing one recruit into an industrial dryer and turning it on.

A former Marine Corps drill instructor was “drunk on power” and targeted three Muslim recruits for abuse, prosecutors said at the opening of his court-martial on charges including cruelty and maltreatment.

Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix punched, choked, and kicked recruits at the Marine Corps' training center at Parris Island, South Carolina, prosecutors said Tuesday, according to multiple news outlets.

“You will learn the accused is drunk on power,” prosecutor Capt. Corey Weilert told the eight-person jury hearing the case at Camp Lejeune, a sprawling Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

After a confrontation in March 2016 when Felix slapped his face, 20-year-old Raheel Siddiqui of Taylor, Michigan, fell three stories to his death, investigators said. Siddiqui’s death was declared suicide, but since then Marine Corps officials have said they uncovered widespread hazing of recruits and young drill instructors and identified up to 20 people possibly tied to misconduct.

A commanding officer at Parris Island who was fired amid allegations of misconduct after Siddiqui’s death also faces a court-martial. Lt. Col. Joshua Kissoon is charged with making false statements, failing to heed an order and other charges. He will face court-martial at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, but no trial date has been set.

Mentions of Siddiqui’s death are being limited by Judge Lt. Col. Michael Libretto to testimony addressing an obstruction charge facing Felix. Prosecutors say Felix told recruits not to talk about the incident outside of the unit, The Island Packet of Hilton Head, South Carolina, reported.

Felix also faces three counts of maltreatment toward Siddiqui and the two other Muslim recruits, as well as nine counts of violating an order, making a false statement, and being drunk and disorderly.

One of the Muslim recruits, 21-year-old Rekan Hawez, who came from Kurdistan to the US as a baby, testified that Felix began hazing him after finding out he was a Kurd, The Island Packet reported.

Hawez, who was other-than-honorably discharged in June 2016, said that Felix routinely called him "Kurdish,""ISIS" and "terrorist," The Island Packet reported.

Hawez said that one night Felix made his entire platoon drink multiple glasses of chocolate milk before exercises, and when one recruit vomited, Felix made another recruit drink the vomit, The Island Packet reported.

Hawez also said Felix forced his platoon into a laundry room to perform exercises on a different night, and at one point, forced him to get into an industrial dryer.

"Hey ISIS, get in the dryer," Felix allegedly told Hawez, The Island Packet reported.

Ameer Bourmeche, now a 23-year-old lance corporal at Camp Pendleton in California, said he was roused awake in the middle of the night in July 2015 by shouts of “Where’s the terrorist?” He said Felix and another drill instructor, Sgt. Michael Eldridge, marched him to the barracks shower room, where Felix elbowed him in the chin. They smelled of alcohol, Bourmeche testified.

Eldridge also was charged, but he is cooperating with the prosecution and is expected to face less-severe punishment, The Washington Post reported.

Bourmeche said Felix and Eldridge ordered him to do push-ups and other exercises in the shower, then told him to climb into an industrial-size clothes dryer. He said they turned on the dryer with him inside three separate times. Each time, the drill instructors asked whether he renounced Islam. The third time, Bourmeche said, he told them he was no longer a Muslim.

Defense counselor Navy Lt. Cmdr. Clay Bridges told jurors that testimony by Bourmeche and other recruits are boot camp stories that have been conflated, are contradictory and “blown out of proportion.”

The trial is scheduled to last about two weeks.

SEE ALSO: Navy officer charged with hazing after forcing sailor to carry around Charlie Brown figurine

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