Here I am at the infamous Abu Ghraib. While in Baghdad, I ran into a friend of mine and was able to join one of his unit's convoys to this prison. This is, of course, prior to this facility being turned over to the Iraqis.

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.

Here's my section training in house clearing.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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.

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

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.

I took this photo while flying over Baghdad. It is the Grand Mosque which Saddam was building when the invasion occurred. When finished, it was supposed to be the largest mosque in the world. I doubt it will ever be completed.

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.

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.