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.

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 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.

I was able to visit the Ah Shaw(sp) palace in Baghdad - one of Saddam's old haunts and now the home of MNC-I. These columns were huge.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 is the Perfume Palace on Victory Base Complex in Baghdad. The story I heard was that this was once where Saddam and his boys kept their extra-curricular female companions. Now, it houses contractors.

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

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.

Here's my section training in house clearing.