FRIDAY FOTO May 25, 2012

Beach Party, Thailand

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Robert Clowney

O.K., so it’s not the kind of beach “party” you’d expect to see in a Thai travel brochure or website. This week’s photo shows Thai and U.S. Marines participating in a simulated amphibious assault during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Thailand 2012 in Hat Yao, Thailand on May 23.

About 3,500 Thai and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel participated in the niner-day exercise, which ended today (May 25). CARAT is a series of annual bilateral naval exercises that the U.S. has conducted with counterparts in Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. See CARAT Facebook page.

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can get a good look at the Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) used to transport the Marines and Thai troops from the amphibious landing dock ship USS Germantown (LSD 42) to the beach. Note the AAVs coming ashore in the background. As we have noted in the past (July 22, 2011) the Marines are looking for a replacement to the ageing AAVs, which have been around since the 1970s.

The Marines in this week’s FRIFO are assigned to Foxtrot Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. To see more photos of this exercise, click here.