Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 10

I thought this would be a good photo to post last because if you look through the Cross Sabers in the background you can see the Baath Party Headquarters Building that I stood on top of to take that first picture.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 9

Me and My Gunner at the top of the Monument... I am not sure what the significance of this object is. I am 6' tall if this gives you any idea how large this place is. I never realized how big it was till I had to climb to the top and even then it took pictures to point it out to me.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 8

I am not sure what this says but it is written at the base of that big half shell thing. We are not supposed to go down into the Monument.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 7

At the top of the Monument 3

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 6

At the top of the Monument 2

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 5

At the top of the Monument 1

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 4

Me at the top of the Monument

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 3

A shot from the base of the Monument

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 2

Here is a shot from the east side of the Tomb

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument 1

This is one of the first pictures I took when I got to Iraq I was standing on top of the Baath Party Headquarters Building. I intended to take a picture of the east set of Cross Sabers but it ended up to be a pretty good shot of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument also.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument

This Monument was constructed by Saddam Hussein in memory of those killed during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The huge monument is built on an artificial hill and houses an underground museum.

There is some more information and some cool pictures located Here

I can't read arabic so I was wondering if someone could translate this sign I saw on the road the other day. I thought it was pretty interesting...

I knew it!

I knew if I posted those dates they would change. Look for me to be home mid January now. I should be back in the states before Christmas though. Just not in my home town... (bummer).

Here's me taking a minute out on a mission to play with some puppies and feed them some cookies.

Three More Months(?)

It has been a while since my last post... I have seen a few cool things, that I cannot write about but will probably always remember, since the last time I posted. I will probably post a few pictures in the next couple posts of my last week and a half.

I think today marks the 3 month count down for us leaving this country. With any luck we could be demobilized and home before Christmas, but that is not a guarantee. With my luck we will probably not get home until after the new year. I know my Company command will try to get us home before then if there is any way that is possible but something always comes seems to come up.

Today we had our first training briefing for a mission that we will be a part of from now on. This mission will be added on top of the mission my platoon has been doing for the last 8 months. None of us are looking forward to doing this especially with the end of our deployment coming up.

This new mission is not supposed to interfere with the mission we are already running since the one we are running now is much more important. However, I am still skeptical about how this will all pan out. We have a couple weeks of training to do before we start and hopefully we will get some new equipment that I think we need during this time.

A week of midnight to noon shift!

Last night started a week of working midnight to noon for my team... So far we agree it isn't half bad. Staying up all night while it is nice and cool outside, not to mention calm is a pretty good deal. We are more or less just "On Call" during these 12 hours so we have to stay in a room or right outside the building. That isn't half bad because there is a couple TV's in the room and I ran a ethernet cable over to the room and hooked my old wireless router up so that we could have internet in there while we wait. Last night I got to talk to my mom and dad a little while I was on shift so it wasn't too bad at all. The other 12 hours of the day we don't have to worry about getting pulled for any duties so that is pretty nice too. Now if I could just use some of that waiting time for reading instead of playing around on the internet I could do something productive :)

Yet again another reason to "Just say no to drugs!"

Kanye West's infinite wisdom I am going to leave out my comments that would include words like moron or idiot. Because I have been told that I have a problem with name calling.

I will, however, leave this Open for comments. Please tell me your thoughts on this because it is bound to be a great conversation piece. Make sure to watch the video :) and if you read my blog you better comment cause this one is on you guys :)

How to make a donation.

To donate to the American Red Cross Hurricane 2005 Relief Click Here!

Quick Sand?

SGT Ballard stomping in the sand...

This is not water or mud this is just really dry sand that is about the consistancy of baby powder... This is pretty much why we have dust storms constantly here.

Foamy's Opinion on the Situation in Louisiana

These are pretty much my exact thoughts...
Beware Explicit Language!!!