This Qatari was selling opportunities to hold his falcon for $5. I didn't take him up on it.

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

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

Here's my section training in house clearing.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

my new rifle

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.

Here's a couple of the Iraqi Army soldiers we had living on our base. Not exactly Western standards, but they tried.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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?).

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.

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

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.