Stars and Stripes:

A U.S. Army Patriot missile defense system and an Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft combined Wednesday to shoot down a dummy cruise missile over the Pacific, according to an Army spokesman.

The drill marked the first time a Patriot system had been fired from the island nation of Palau, and the first time a Patriot had combined with a stealth fighter for a live-fire drill outside of testing in the U.S., according to Maj. Nicholas Chopp, a spokesman for the Hawaii-based 94th Air and Missile Defense Command.

The target was shot down just over 20 miles from the island at an altitude of 10,000 feet using radar data provided by an F-35A assigned to the 354th Air Expeditionary Wing, which also launched from Palau.

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