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?).

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 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.

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

The extension on the front of this HMMWV is used to set off IEDs prior to the HMMWV actually passing by. These have been used in Iraq for some time, so I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here.

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.

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.

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

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 a friend of mine, working for EODT security. He was actually deployed with me, but retired as a Sergeant Major after coming back and starting working for EODT back in Iraq. He's striking a tough-guy pose, but he's really the nicest guy you could meet

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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.

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.

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

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.