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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Believe it or not, it does rain in Iraq, as these poor soldiers found out when they tried to move this large forklift over some muddy ground.

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.

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

Here's my section training in house clearing.

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

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.

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.

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

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