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

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

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.

House clearing training.

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

This is the Al Faw palace at Camp Victory in Baghdad. Saddam used to occupy it, but it's now home to MNC-I.

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

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.

my new rifle

I was able to visit the Ah Shaw(sp) palace in Baghdad - one of Saddam's old haunts and now the home of MNC-I. These columns were huge.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?).

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.

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.