This photo was making the email rounds while I was in Iraq. Reportedly, it was a wolf captured in or around Baghdad. I don't know that wolves are indigenous to Iraq, so it could have come from the zoo.

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?).

040426-F-7823A-003 A U.S. Army solder from the 1st Infantry Division, LSA (Logistics Support Area) Anaconda, Iraq, scans the area while conducting a patrol on 26 APR 2004. The area is being cleared of threats so the TACPs (Tactical Air Control Party) can call in an air-strike. (cleared for public release) Photo by Staff Sgt Aaron Allmon II

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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.

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

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

my new rifle

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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