Army Corp of Engineers Baghdad

This is one of Sadam's Palaces. I think it is the one that he was a prisoner in while he was on trial according to one of the guards. Must have taken alot of work to do it.







This is one of the armored transport carriers that people use to move around iraq. You can see a gun turret on top of it in case it needs to deal some death.






This the DFAC or cafeteria that I eat at during my meals. The roof on top is suppose to stop incoming rockets. Haven't had to see that yet luckily.






This the army corp living conditions in Baghdad. Not bad huh. It is actually one of the nicest places to stay in the military while in Baghdad so that is a lucky thing for me.








Just thought I would throw in a picture I had on my camera of my little buddy. He is helping me with my tools.

Iraq

Here is our 46 man group flying on a C-130 headed for Baghdad. It was packed and not very comfortable. As you can see we are in our body armor and the seats are basically cargo straps. It was only an hour long flight but it seemed like 10.






Now you can see how excited I am to be riding in a C-130. I am ready to get to my job and start working.








Here I am in Baghdad at the Al Faw Palace. This is where Sadam did alot of his work. It is quite the complex he had at his disposal. I can imagine it was pretty awesome before the war. Now it looks alittle war torn.






This is inside the palace. It is amazing. Great design and craftsmanship for this area. Most buildings are no where close to being as nice as the palace. You can see the leader of this country didn't care about anyone but himself.





This was one of Sadam's chairs that he sat in. Alittle to big for me, except it would be nice for Sunday night football sitting with my wife and some snacks.

KUWAIT

Here are the tents we lived in while staying in Kuwait. They are air conditioned, but during mid day it is still 100 degrees inside of tent with air conditioning. I believe the first day I was here it was 127 degrees.






Here we are getting ready for our training out in the desert. I am getting ready to eat an MRE. Yum! Atleast they have heaters. My favorite MRE was the tuna, because it was real tuna for a sandwich or something. The worst one was beef stew. Don't know what was in it, but it wasn't beef.





Here is what we stayed in while camping in the middle of the desert. It was about 135 degrees, but with no humidity it wasn't as bad as I thought. I drank about 4 liters of water a day to stay hydated.






This was inside the building. We all slept inside together and then would wake up around 3 am. So many people, not much sleep.







Here is our convoy training. My humvee is behind us. It is armored and ready to go. It was actually pretty fun to go driving around in the middle of the desert. We passed a herd of camels, but couldn't get out to take pictures due to training.

Leaving for Kuwait

Leaving Camp McCrady at Fort Jackson for the airport. We are all ready to leave and start our next evolution of training.








Here is the airplance as we are getting ready to get on. Our flight was a total of 22 hrs to get to Kuwait. We stopped in Germany on the way to get a taste of a dreamful climate.







This was the hanger we were staged in until we were about to get on the airplane. Some volunteer veterans and kids from schools came out to give us some care packages and shake our hands. It was pretty nice of them.

Training at Fort Jackson

This is Camp McCrady near Fort Jackson. This is my view every morning when I wake up. That is the drill pad where we form up and get our daily schedule.

This is in full battle "rattle" while shooting at the range. We had to carry this around with us during shooting and training so we could get used to before we head over to the middle east. It was pretty heavy.

Spent 3 weeks at FT Jackson for training purposes before going to Iraq. There are several pictures that show us using the range for shooting practice and qualifications.

We actually had one day were we got to shoot some of the big guns. This was me shooting a 5omm machine gun. We hit an old tank and put some holes in it.

This was our stress shoot. We got out of hummers and then had to run to the range and shoot targets while were tired and on the move. It was a good exercise for combat situations.

First Week Departure from NMPS Norfolk

Here is a picture of our bus ride from Norfolk, VA down to Fort Jackson, SC. Training is about to start.