This is the Al Faw palace at Camp Victory in Baghdad. Saddam used to occupy it, but it's now home to MNC-I.

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

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

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.

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.

This graffiti showed up on some walls in a local national parking lot not long before I left. I was told it is a memorial to locals who had worked for the USA and been killed.

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

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.

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

Here's my section training in house clearing.

my new rifle

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.

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 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 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.

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, it does rain in Iraq, as these poor soldiers found out when they tried to move this large forklift over some muddy ground.