Sadam Hussein's "Victory" Arch (Move your mouse over this photo to see a lighter view.)

The photograph above shows Sadam Hussein's "Victory" Arch from the Iran-Iraq War, which, of course, the world knows that he did not actually win! It is now in the Coalition Forces' "Green Zone."

Things are going well here and I stay extremely busy. This actually helps make the time fly by! My job is to help get the Iraqi Air Force up and running, to help support the efforts against the terrorists/insurgents. This is a much bigger challenge than I expected, since their air force had been essentially disbanded since the first Gulf War.

My job requires me to travel around the country, and I’ve tried to take a lot of pictures. The areas around the country has some extremes … some areas are very green and many beautiful palaces … other areas are very brown and dusty with bombed building and shacks.

As you will see in these photos, there are some very nice things about this area and some not so nice. These first two pictures are of the bad things … heat and sand. Move your mouse over my car's instrument panel to see the outside temperature!

My car's instrument panel

Sand storm on July 14, 2005

Below is a picture of one of Sadam's many palaces. It looks very nice, however, what you can’t see is the interior of the building is completely destroyed by bombs.

The picture on the left is a bust of Saddam that used to be on the top of the palace. That's me in front of the concertina wire.

And here's a photo at the entrance to Camp Anaconda outside Baghdad.