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.

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.

A McDonald's sign I saw at Ali Al Salim base in Kuwait.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

my new rifle

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

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.

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

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.