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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

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

This gentleman was herding sheep around our FOB. The area we were in was predominantly farm and sheep-herding country.

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

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

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?).

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

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.

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

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.