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

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.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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

House clearing training.

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

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.

This is a UH60 refueling. I don't recall what base this is on. They kick the passengers off while they're doing this, which is when I got this picture.

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

This Qatari was selling opportunities to hold his falcon for $5. I didn't take him up on it.

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

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 is a mosque located on our FOB. No American was alloowed inside - even if you were security (like me) or an American Muslim.

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

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 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.