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

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.

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.

This is a rocket that landed on our base, detonated underground, and did no damage. I believe this is actually a rocket designed to be fired from an aircraft, but Hajji will use anything they can get to shoot.

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 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.

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

Iraqi Police having their vehicles checked prior to entry to the base. We trusted the Iraqi Army in our area better than the police.

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

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

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.

House clearing training.

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.

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