ALI AL SALEM AIR BASE, Kuwait --  

Texas Army National Guard Soldiers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Airborne Regiment jump from a C-130J Super Hercules from the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing during an airborne operation over Egypt in support of exercise Bright Star 23, Sept. 7, 2023. The 61st Air Expeditionary Squadron is a C-130J Super Hercules unit deployed from Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. Bright Star 23 is a multilateral U.S. Central Command exercise held with the Arab Republic of Egypt across air, land, and sea domains that promotes and enhances regional security and cooperation and improves interoperability in irregular warfare against hybrid threat scenarios.