This is a mosque located on our FOB. No American was alloowed inside - even if you were security (like me) or an American Muslim.

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

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

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

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 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.

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 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.

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.

my new rifle

I took this photo while flying over Baghdad. It is the Grand Mosque which Saddam was building when the invasion occurred. When finished, it was supposed to be the largest mosque in the world. I doubt it will ever be completed.

Iraqi Police having their vehicles checked prior to entry to the base. We trusted the Iraqi Army in our area better than the police.

This photo was making the email rounds while I was in Iraq. Reportedly, it was a wolf captured in or around Baghdad. I don't know that wolves are indigenous to Iraq, so it could have come from the zoo.

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.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

This is a rocket that landed on our base, detonated underground, and did no damage. I believe this is actually a rocket designed to be fired from an aircraft, but Hajji will use anything they can get to shoot.

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.