This ammo can was on the top of one of our HMMWVS and took the force of a IED attack. It probably saved the life of the gunner.

This mosque, I was told, was Saddam's personal mosque near the Al Faw palace. Now, it's located on Victory Base Complex.

I would love to tell you what this mural says, but I never got it translated. I'm pretty sure it dates back to when the Iraqi Army and Air Force were still under Saddam. It was located in a building on our FOB.

If you fly much in Iraq, then you've likely been on one of these - a C-17. They are much better to fly in than C-130s.

Me practicing shooting an AK47. As you can tell, it was a hot day. It was fun shooting the AK on full auto, but I still prefer the M4.

This is me getting the upper hand on one of the guys in my unit. We were learning search techniques for a hand-cuffed suspect.

Here's one of my soldiers manning the gunner's post. This was during one of our trips into Qayyarah.

This is a UH60 refueling. I don't recall what base this is on. They kick the passengers off while they're doing this, which is when I got this picture.

This Qatari was selling opportunities to hold his falcon for $5. I didn't take him up on it.

This a friend of mine, working for EODT security. He was actually deployed with me, but retired as a Sergeant Major after coming back and starting working for EODT back in Iraq. He's striking a tough-guy pose, but he's really the nicest guy you could meet

This gentleman was herding sheep around our FOB. The area we were in was predominantly farm and sheep-herding country.

A collection of rocket launchers. Hajji will often set these up, put a rocket in it, set up some sort of timer device, and then leave the area for the rocket to fire at a later time.

House clearing training.

Here's a couple of the Iraqi Army soldiers we had living on our base. Not exactly Western standards, but they tried.

We went through training on how to search a suspect and I got to play "suspect".

During training, we fired our weapons many times. Here I am getting in some practice firing three-round bursts for accuracy.

Believe it or not, this is what they served for dinner one night. I think it was a case of a Turk not translating to English correctly.

Here's what it looked like as we boarded the plane to fly to Iraq. I remember being both excited and nervous at the same time.

This is a typical truck driven by private security. It's armored to some extent, and features a "gun bucket" in the back for a rear gunner's position.