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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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 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?).

While in Iraq, you get a one-week MWR trip to Qatar. On one of the trips we were allowed to take, this Qatari was selling camel rides. I didn't bother with it.

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

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 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.

Me practicing shooting an AK47. As you can tell, it was a hot day. It was fun shooting the AK on full auto, but I still prefer the M4.

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.

Everyone going overseas, no matter your job, has to learn how to do room clearing. Here we are training a "four-man stack". The squad leader is taking up the rear.

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

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