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

my new rifle

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.

A McDonald's sign I saw at Ali Al Salim base in Kuwait.

Me with one of the local kids in a nearby village.

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

Believe it or not, it does rain in Iraq, as these poor soldiers found out when they tried to move this large forklift over some muddy ground.

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

Here I am at the infamous Abu Ghraib. While in Baghdad, I ran into a friend of mine and was able to join one of his unit's convoys to this prison. This is, of course, prior to this facility being turned over to the Iraqis.

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

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.

Here I am during a trip to Qayyarah to check on a water-pumping station.

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.

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

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.

Me in the office. 'BDOC' stands for Base Defense Operations Center.

The FOB I was on was a former Iraqi Air Force base. As a result, we had a couple of these old Mig-21s laying around. The former commander of the base told me the more modern planes were buried - and then dug up for scrap by the locals.

While in Iraq, you get a one-week MWR trip to Qatar. On one of the trips we were allowed to take, this Qatari was selling camel rides. I didn't bother with it.