FRIDAY FOTO (Oct. 11, 2012)

The Wind-up

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Isis Ramirez

A rifleman with Marine Deployment Unit 5, Maldivian National Defense Force, demonstrates throwing a grenade during a fragmentation battle station Oct. 6 as part of Exercise Coconut Grove 2012 on Gan Island. Coconut Grove, a bilateral training exercise conducted bi-annually between the Marine Corps and the MNDF., runs through Oct. 17.

The Coconut Grove exercise focuses mainly on general military skills training for the Marines and MNDF forces.

The Maldives consist of more than 1,000 islands located in the Indian Ocean about 250 miles south of India. The low-lying islands, home to 328,000 people, are expected to be one of the first countries to feel the effects of sea rise due to climate change.