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.

my new rifle

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Me in the office. 'BDOC' stands for Base Defense Operations Center.

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.

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

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.