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.

House clearing training.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

my new rifle

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

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.

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.