In this photo by Sergeant Matthew Bragg, Marine Lance Corporal Tristan Stecki hands a young boy a balloon during a community relations event at Calangitan Elementary School in Capas, Philippines. Stecki is a combat engineer assigned to Alpha Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion and he is a native of Waukesha, Washington.

Marines were participating in Balikatan 2023, an annual U.S./Philippines training exercise that included several humanitarian relief projects to benefit local communities. Combat engineers are experts at construction, civil engineering, and sanitation.These skills were put to work in local relief efforts in Luzon, one of the poorest regions of the Philippines. The exercise involved more than 17,600 participants who received training in maritime security, amphibious operations, live-fire training, urban operations, aviation operations, counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief.

Balikatan means “shoulder-to-shoulder” which is emblematic of the historically close relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines and the mutual defense pact signed in 1998 between the two countries.