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.

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

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?).

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

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.

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.

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

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.

my new rifle

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

In this photo, I'm in the lower right pulling perimeter security during a short halt in training.

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

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.

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

QWBC, the FOB I was on, was an old Iraqi air force base and there were some of these old, beat fighters still lying around.

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

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.

House clearing training.