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

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

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

House clearing training.

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

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.

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 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'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 a Styker from the FOB I was on. The 'bird cage' of slats around the vehicle help stop RPG rounds.

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

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 me getting the upper hand on one of the guys in my unit. We were learning search techniques for a hand-cuffed suspect.

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

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.