By Robbin Laird
The official photographic record of Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course 2-26, running from March through late April 2026 at MCAS Yuma and across a range of training sites in the American Southwest, is more than a set of public affairs images. Examined systematically, it constitutes a documentary argument about how the Marine Corps is preparing its future aviation instructors to fight. The images were taken by Sgt. DeMontae Stovall, Cpl. Seferino Gamez, Lance Cpl. Fabian Ortiz, and Sgt. Andrew King across a seven-week period and a half-dozen locations, and they collectively trace the arc of a WTI course from its unglamorous first week through its largest combined-arms culminating exercises.
What follows is a reading of that photographic record as a coherent body of evidence, not a survey of individual images, but an analysis of what the record as a whole reveals about WTI’s evolving operational logic, its integration of new mission sets, and its persistent emphasis on the joint and expeditionary character of the force the Marine Corps is building.
The Course Begins on the Ground: Auxiliary Airfield II, March 14
The WTI 2-26 photographic record opens not with aircraft but with aluminum matting. The first documented evolution, March 14 at Auxiliary Airfield II near Yuma, shows Marines with Marine Wing Support Squadron 373 laying AM-2 expeditionary airfield panels, driving anchor stakes with a pneumatic post driver, and twisting safety wire through connector hardware in the Arizona desert. The placement of this evolution at the opening of the course is a statement about what MAWTS-1 considers foundational.
The most analytically precise image from that day is a close-up of two pairs of gloved hands twisting safety wire through mat connector hardware. Nothing in the frame signals glamour or drama. It is hands and wire and metal. But the image makes an argument that the rest of the course depends upon: aviation capability is bounded not by what aircraft can do in the air but by what support personnel can build and certify on the ground. The safety wire is the step that transforms a laid surface into a certified surface. A prospective WTI who has not personally performed that step who cannot tell a MWSS commander how long it actually takes cannot accurately plan an expeditionary airfield construction timeline.
Three days later, on March 17, a different team returned to the same surface to build the next functional layer: the Forward Arming and Refueling Point practical application. The sequence is architecturally coherent. The matting provides the hardened surface. The FARP provides the fuel and ordnance that will sustain aircraft through multiple sorties without returning to a main operating base. The photographs from the FARP evolution, a surveyor’s measuring wheel walking the runway to establish fuel point standoff distances, a Marine connecting an inlet fitting inside a collapsed fuel bladder, two pairs of gloved hands securing a brass ball valve at the pump unit, reinforce the same argument as the matting photographs: expeditionary aviation is built from the ground up, one certified connection at a time.
The joint character of both evolutions is visible in the photographs and analytically significant. At the matting evolution, a U.S. Army first lieutenant is on his knees working alongside Marines at the mat surface. At the FARP evolution, U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Peter Lake of the 49th Civil Engineer Squadron, a unit from Holloman Air Force Base whose parent wing operates F-16s and F-22s — is rolling fuel line across AM-2 matting. These are not token gestures of jointness. They are evidence that the expeditionary airfield architecture the Marine Corps needs to establish in the Indo-Pacific will require exactly this kind of integrated, multi-service team working to a common standard under time pressure at an austere site.
The UAS Dimension: From Threat Replication to Kill Web Integration
The WTI 2-26 photographic record is unusually complete on the subject of unmanned aviation, and what it reveals is a program that has moved well beyond the marginal integration of UAS as add-on capabilities. Two distinct but related UAS threads run through the course, and both are documented in the photographic record: the Marine Corps MQ-9A as an organic kill web node, and contractor-operated threat-representative UAS as a persistent force within the exercise scenarios.
The MQ-9A record from April 4 at Yuma Proving Ground is among the most analytically valuable in the series because it includes both the aircraft and its operators at work simultaneously. Four images show the MQ-9A on the ramp in pre-launch configuration with its multi-spectral targeting sensor turret visible under the forward fuselage, the ground power unit cable still connected at the forward fuselage in one image, the propeller beginning to turn in another. Five images document the Ground Control Station interior: multiple operators at screens displaying moving-map data overlaid with tactical symbology, a mission commander standing behind the seated crew with a radio handset to his mouth, a MAWTS-1 patch clearly visible on his sleeve.
The GCS photographs make an argument that the images themselves do not narrate: the Ground Control Station is a cockpit. The operator at the controls is flying an aircraft. The scan discipline, the communication protocols, the situational awareness management, all are present, expressed through different hardware and experienced in a different physical environment than a manned cockpit, but operationally equivalent. MAWTS-1’s treatment of the MQ-9A as a WTI-certifiable platform reflects the institutional judgment that unmanned aviation is not a specialty track. It is aviation. The prospective WTI must understand it that way to integrate it effectively into the kill web.
The second UAS thread, the OPFOR threat simulation program, is documented most completely in the Assault Support Tactics 1 photographs from Chocolate Mountain on April 13. Contractors Emanuel Puerta and Bradley Romeher are shown at Observation Point 4 assembling medium fixed-wing pusher-prop UAS on the rocky desert floor: commercial-military hybrid designs configured to replicate adversary ISR drone and loitering munition profiles. The balance-point check visible in one image, two operators checking center of gravity of an airframe before flight, is the detail that distinguishes a professionally operated threat simulation from an improvised substitute. A UAS whose center of gravity is off does not fly the threat profile the exercise requires.
The integration of these two UAS threads organic Marine MQ-9A and OPFOR contractor UAS into the same WTI course is itself an analytical finding. WTI 2-26 is training its prospective instructors to understand unmanned aviation from both sides of the engagement: as operators of persistent kill web sensors, and as defenders against the same class of technology employed by the adversary. The counter-UAS thread runs through multiple exercises beyond the dedicated UAS tactics event. It appears in the UH-1Y rappelling and door gun exercise on April 7, where the exercise designation explicitly pairs rappelling operations with counter-UAS employment, and in the AST-1 scenario where the assault package must operate under contractor-flown OPFOR UAS.
The UH-1Y’s Full Picture: Multi-Function Aviation in a Single Day
The April 7 photographs of the UH-1Y Venom are the most operationally complete single-platform record in the WTI 2-26 series, and they reward careful reading. The thirteen images move from the MCAS Yuma ramp through rappelling operations in the rocky desert mountains, a hot-pad FARP turnaround at a forward site, and door gun employment across the desert floor into the closing light of sunset. No other platform type in the WTI 2-26 photographic record is documented executing this range of missions in a single operational day.
The rappelling sequence is documented from multiple perspectives that together convey the precision it demands. The operationally most compelling image shows aircraft 10 hovering above a rocky desert ridgeline, hoist line dropping vertically from the cabin, a Marine in red, the safety color used in training to distinguish the rappeller from the terrain — descending the rock face while a purple smoke grenade burns at the cliff base. The three elements of that image, aircraft, rappeller, smoke, constitute a complete picture of the crew coordination and terrain awareness that hoist operations require. A subsequent image pulls back to show the aircraft as a small shape in the upper frame, the rappeller suspended below, and beneath them the full breadth of the Yuma desert ranges. The scale of that image makes the precision of sustained hover over irregular terrain visually apparent in a way that close-up photography alone cannot achieve.
The FARP turnaround images from April 7 create one of the most analytically satisfying visual threads in the entire WTI 2-26 photographic record: the direct connection between the FARP practical application at Auxiliary Airfield II in the first week of the course and the operational use of a FARP in week three. An image looking out from inside one UH-1Y shows the crew chief at the door gun oriented outward while on the desert pad below, Marines are working fuel hoses and a second UH-1Y takes fuel. The same expeditionary fuel system documented in assembly on March 17 is being used operationally on April 7. The matting and FARP evolutions were not isolated training vignettes. They were infrastructure-building for operations the course would conduct weeks later.
The door gun sequence closes the day and is the most visually striking in the set. One image captures the precise moment of a tracer round leaving the barrel, a bright orange-red streak against the blue desert sky and the flat terrain below. Subsequent images show gun smoke rolling back from successive bursts, white clouds trailing behind the aircraft as it continues across the desert, the sun on the horizon as the final images are taken. The counter-UAS dimension of this employment is not decorative. The engagement geometry that a door gunner trains against ground targets, gun traverse, lead calculation, burst discipline — maps directly onto what is required to engage a small, slow, low-flying UAS. The pairing of rappelling and counter-UAS in this exercise day’s designation was not accidental.
Fires and Logistics by Air: The HIMARS KC-130J Night Off-Load at Barstow
Six photographs taken through night vision devices on April 6 at Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California, document one of the most operationally consequential integration exercises in WTI 2-26: the nighttime off-load of an M142 HIMARS from a KC-130J Hercules. The photographs exist entirely in the monochrome grain of NVG imagery, circular aperture, grainy texture, high-contrast shadows. because the operation was conducted in darkness by design. This is Tactics VI in the WTI curriculum, and the NVG aesthetic is not a stylistic choice. It is an operational reality.
The pre-arrival image is analytically under-appreciated in isolation but essential to the sequence as a whole: three Marines seated inside the KC-130J cargo cabin, NVGs mounted, reviewing a tablet together before the aircraft begins its approach. This is the coordination moment, the off-load team confirming responsibilities and updating the ground picture at the destination. The tablet they are reviewing is the same digital coordination tool visible across the WTI 2-26 photographic record; its presence here at altitude on final approach to a night off-load is consistent with MAWTS-1’s integration of handheld digital devices across every phase of every operation.
The chain release sequence is documented in three images that become progressively more physically demanding. The first shows a Marine working forward tie-down chains from a standing position, the HIMARS cab visible behind him. The second shows a crew member crouched at deck level, both hands on a chain tensioner at a floor anchor ring, leverage required to release the tensioner under load. The third, the most physically striking image in the set, shows two crew members lying flat on the cargo floor beneath the HIMARS front axle, working the under-vehicle tie-down connections that cannot be reached from a standing or crouching position. Marines on their backs under a HIMARS in an aircraft cargo bay at night, working blind under NVGs: this is the detail that makes the off-load procedure visible as a skilled technical task rather than a simple logistics movement.
The choice of MCLB Barstow as the off-load location carries its own analytical weight. Barstow is not a tactical aviation installation. It is the Marine Corps’ primary West Coast logistics depot, functional airfield, serviceable, but not optimized for tactical aviation operations. That deliberate choice replicates the operational reality: in a Pacific contingency, HIMARS will not be off-loaded at prepared military airfields. It will be off-loaded at any airfield a KC-130J can access. The WTI exercise at Barstow was practicing the operational reality, not the optimal-case scenario.
Survivable Sensors: The G/ATOR at AAW-4
The four photographs from the Anti-Air Warfare exercise near Yuma on April 17-18 are among the most operationally sophisticated in the WTI 2-26 record, and they reward detailed reading because they capture something rarely documented together: not just a radar deployed, but a radar deployed survivably.
The AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR array in two images is necessarily visible. It requires line of sight to the sky to function, and its flat-panel array faces outward on its trailer behind an MK23 MTVR, elevation optimized for the exercise scenario’s detection geometry. A Jolly Roger pirate flag flies from the mast beside the array, the informal unit marking common in Marine radar communities that signals an aggressive, hunting posture rather than a passive, wait-and-respond defensive posture.
The most operationally significant photograph in the AAW-4 set requires careful reading because its subject is concealment. A large-format camouflage net is draped over low desert scrub. On casual inspection, it appears to show natural vegetation. On careful examination, the rectangular outline of equipment housing is visible beneath the netting, and a single Marine stands at the edge partially absorbed by the net’s shadow. This is the G/ATOR operations node, the shelter containing operator consoles, processing hardware, and communications interfaces, concealed under netting integrated into the surrounding mesquite and desert brush.
The productive tension between this image and the radar array images is the analytical core of the AAW-4 set. The array transmits and cannot be fully concealed while operating. The operations node does not need to be co-located with the array. The deployment discipline documented at WTI 2-26 separates the two: the array is positioned to maximize detection geometry while minimizing ground signature; the operations node is concealed at distance and connected by cable. The adversary who locates the antenna has not found the operators or the communications architecture.
The fourth image in the set completes the survivability concept: three Marines in a scraped desert fighting position under a smaller camouflage net, weapons present, position oriented outward from the radar site. The security element is what allows the concealed operations node to continue functioning under the assumption that a ground threat could materialize. The fighting position reflects the same signature discipline as the operations node, below ground level, under netting, presenting no standing target. The four photographs taken together constitute a survivable sensor position: a radar that sees, a node that hides, a security team that defends.
The Integrated Fight: AST-1 at Chocolate Mountain and AST-3 at Twentynine Palms
The two assault support tactics exercises, AST-1 at Chocolate Mountain on April 13 and AST-3 at Twentynine Palms on April 17-18, represent the culminating integration events in the WTI 2-26 photographic record, and they are qualitatively different from every earlier evolution in the series. Where the March evolutions trained specific functions in relative isolation and the April 4-7 evolutions trained specific platforms and mission sets, AST-1 and AST-3 run everything simultaneously.
The AST-1 photographic record spans the full operational picture from Observation Point 4 on the Chocolate Mountain ridgeline to the mock city target complex on the desert floor. The sequence begins with contractor UAS operators ascending the mountain alongside Marine terminal controllers, a civilian in blue jeans among the camouflage on the approach march to OP4 — and proceeds through the terminal control node, the UH-1Y insertions at a rocky unimproved landing zone, and the large-scale assault at the mock city. The final image in the series is the visual argument for why AST-1 matters: multiple CH-53 series aircraft landing near the mock city complex, raising a brown dust cloud that extends across the full width of the frame, the Chocolate Mountain range rising behind it all.
The terminal control node photograph from AST-1 is the analytical centerpiece of the ground element coverage. Three personnel are at a rocky ridgeline position: a Marine standing with a full radio kit and NVGs mounted, speaking into a handset while scanning; a second Marine crouched and writing on a kneeboard; and an Army soldier in OCP operating a separate radio. This is the human interface between the aircraft in the air and the target on the ground and the Army soldier’s presence reflects the operational reality that terminal control in a real contingency may involve Army, Air Force, or partner-force controllers working alongside Marine aviation. WTI trains that integration rather than assuming it will emerge naturally.
AST-3 at Twentynine Palms places the MV-22B at the center of a qualitatively different mission set: Noncombatant Evacuation Operations and Foreign Humanitarian Assistance. These are not legacy Cold War scenarios. They are the operational reality of contested environments where noncombatants are present, rules of engagement impose constraints that require judgment rather than simply firepower, and the aviation-ground interface must function under time pressure across platform types. The photographs span dawn insertions through low-and-fast dusk flying to night operations with Marines loaded in an aircraft cabin under infrared illumination, navigating by night vision, a visual arc that makes explicit what AST-3’s design implies: the NEO and FHA missions do not end at last light.
The sniper image from Twentynine Palms deserves specific attention: a precision rifleman framed through a circular concrete aperture, looking out across Mojave scrubland toward distant mountains, suppressor and high-magnification optic in view. In a NEO scenario where rules of engagement are constrained and the situation is ambiguous, the sniper’s discriminating precision is the capability that allows a commander to act without escalating unnecessarily. The photograph captures the role without narrating it which is precisely what the best operational photography does.
What the Photographic Record Reveals as a Whole
Read as a sequential documentary record rather than as individual images, the WTI 2-26 photographs make several arguments that are not stated explicitly in any single caption or article.
The first is the argument about sequencing. The course begins with enabling infrastructure — matting, FARPs, expeditionary airfield construction — before it moves to platform operations and culminating integration exercises. This sequencing is not logistical convenience. It is a pedagogical statement: you cannot plan assault support operations intelligently if you do not understand what it actually takes to build and sustain the expeditionary infrastructure those operations depend upon. The WTI student who laid AM-2 panels at Auxiliary Airfield II in week one, connected a FARP bladder fitting in week one, and then used a FARP operationally in week three carries a different understanding of the integrated system than a student who encountered only the flight operations.
The second argument is about jointness as a persistent feature rather than an occasional addition. The Army first lieutenant at the matting evolution, the Air Force civil engineer at the FARP, the Army soldier at the AST-1 terminal control node, the Air Force assets that appear throughout the WTI exercises, these are not special attachments to an otherwise Marine event. They are part of the fabric of the course, present in week one and present in week six. The prospective WTI who completes the course has trained alongside Army and Air Force counterparts in every functional domain, not just in the large-scale integration exercises. That is a different kind of joint education than one achieved through occasional exchange programs or combined exercises.
The third argument concerns the UAS transition. WTI 2-26 treats unmanned aviation not as a separate thread but as an integrated dimension of every function the course addresses. The MQ-9A is a kill web sensor that the prospective WTI must understand how to employ and integrate. Contractor-operated OPFOR UAS are a threat that every assault aviation mission must account for. Counter-UAS employment is paired with rappelling and hoist operations because in a real contingency, a helicopter hovering stationary over a personnel recovery site faces both threats simultaneously. The photographic record captures this integration in a way that no program description or briefing chart can by showing the MQ-9A operator and the OPFOR UAS contractor and the door gunner as figures in the same operational story.
The fourth argument is about signature management and survivability as operational requirements rather than afterthoughts. The concealed G/ATOR operations node at AAW-4 is the most explicit statement of this argument in the photographic record, but it runs throughout. The night off-load at Barstow, the HIMARS delivered to a forward airfield under NVGs in darkness, is a survivability measure: a HIMARS off-loaded in daylight is visible to ISR; one off-loaded at night by a crew trained to execute the procedure under NVGs is not. The expeditionary airfield at Auxiliary Airfield II, AM-2 matting at an austere secondary site rather than at a main base, is a survivability measure: distributed, dispersed, harder to target than a permanent installation. WTI 2-26 is building survivability into the operational DNA of its prospective instructors from the first week.
The Camera as Analytical Instrument
Military photography serves multiple purposes simultaneously. It documents events for the historical record. It provides public affairs material that communicates institutional priorities. And occasionally when the photographers are good and the editorial selection is coherent, it constitutes an analytical argument about what a force is and what it is becoming.
The WTI 2-26 photographic record, taken as a whole across its seven-week span and half-dozen locations, does all three. It documents a specific course at a specific moment in the Marine Corps’ institutional evolution. It communicates, with considerable clarity, what MAWTS-1 considers important enough to train at instructor-certification standard. And it makes an argument visible in the sequencing of evolutions, the persistent joint presence, the integration of UAS across every function, and the survivability discipline embedded in exercises from the FARP to the radar site about the kind of force the Marine Corps is trying to build.
That force operates from dispersed, austere sites built by hand from aluminum matting. It sustains itself through expeditionary fuel systems connected by people who have personally fitted the bladder inlets. It sees through a kill web that includes persistent MQ-9A sensors managed from a Ground Control Station and short-range organic radars concealed under camouflage nets in the desert scrub. It delivers fires by air, at night, at secondary airfields that do not appear on the standard list of primary military installations. It faces UAS threats from every direction, and trains its helicopter crews to engage them with the same weapons they use for ground support.
WTI 2-26 did not build that force. Seven weeks at Yuma and a circuit of training sites across the American Southwest produced a cohort of Weapons and Tactics Instructors who returned to their squadrons understanding what it takes to operate as part of that force. The photographs document why that understanding requires more than a briefing. You have to twist the safety wire. You have to lie under the axle to release the chain. You have to climb the mountain to reach the observation point. The photographic record from WTI 2-26 is, among other things, a record of that physical and intellectual investment being made, one evolution at a time.