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

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.

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 mural I saw on Victory Base Complex in Baghdad. Obviously, it's supposed to show the heroic former Iraqi army. There's a painted-over figure on the left. I'm guessing that was Saddam.

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.

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.

House clearing training.

Everyone going overseas, no matter your job, has to learn how to do room clearing. Here we are training a "four-man stack". The squad leader is taking up the rear.

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

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

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.

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

The extension on the front of this HMMWV is used to set off IEDs prior to the HMMWV actually passing by. These have been used in Iraq for some time, so I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here.

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

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 chair, located in the Al Faw palace was once owned by Saddam. It's a favorite spot for soldiers to get their pictures taken (can you tell?).

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