Photographer's Narrative

As military operations abroad continued to grow, more Airmen found themselves deploying at a rapid rate and for longer periods of time. The Air Force met this challenge head on by developing combat skills training courses for Airmen around the globe to ensure they would be ready to enter the war zone. As I stood on the frozen ground behind the instructor with my camera stretched above my head to capture this image, it was clear that at that moment only one thing mattered for each of those Airmen and that was training for combat. Each Airman trained with a heightened intensity regardless of whether condition or time of day. Every Airman was operational.