Dirt Boyz
COAST GUARD AIR STATION BORINQUEN, Puerto Rico -- Tech. Sgt. David Bailey (right), a heavy equipment operator with the Alaska Air National Guard's 176th Civil Engineer Squadron, scrapes sod from a children's playground while Master Sgt. Scott Peterson, superintendant of the squadron's Heavy Equipment Section, stands by with a small skid-steer loader Feb. 8, 2010. A group of 45 squadron members spent two weeks here in early February to train and sharpen their skills on a wide range of infrastructure projects, upgrades and renovations. The squadron undertakes such a mission -- called a Deployment for Training, or DFT -- every year or two. Recent DFTs have taken the squadron's men and women to Israel, Southern California, Hawaii, Ecuador, Okinawa, Minnesota and Texas. AKANG photo by 1st. Lt. John Callahan.