House clearing training.

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.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.