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

This is a typical truck driven by private security. It's armored to some extent, and features a "gun bucket" in the back for a rear gunner's position.

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.

I took this photo while flying over Baghdad. It is the Grand Mosque which Saddam was building when the invasion occurred. When finished, it was supposed to be the largest mosque in the world. I doubt it will ever be completed.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The FOB I was on was a former Iraqi Air Force base. As a result, we had a couple of these old Mig-21s laying around. The former commander of the base told me the more modern planes were buried - and then dug up for scrap by the locals.

Here's my section training in house clearing.

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

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

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'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.