tons of blackhawks lined up ready to go: 

some chinooks lined up:

me on the left, taking a blackhawk to baghdad: 

 Saddam's palace in Baghdad:   side view: 

looking out the front of the palace:   arial:

One of Saddam's other palaces, this one on the other side of Baghdad:

me inside the palace: 

outside entrance:  entranceway: 

meeting room:  another:

some blown up buildings: (probably saw this building on CNN during "shock and awe")

and another:         

me inside the one above:   

some more from inside there:      

the armored bus (the "rhino")

inside the rhino with an "escort" in front:

no messing around anywhere over here:

you have to laugh at them:

the bartering shops in town:   misc market pics after the bombing:

what the market is now:

aerial shot before the suicide bomber and after:   

pic of the actual hole made by the bomb:    

owner of the shop where the bomb went off: 

me on a hummer with a 50 cal machine gun:

me on a M1 Abrams: 

pic of a chinook with the cross sabres on the left, and tomb of the unknown soldier on the right:

next to a small mortar hole on a rooftop:   shrapnel holes from that blast: 

random pics:

the hospital I work in: 

me in the clinic (actually Saddam's old dental clinic, where I work): 

and another hard at work: 

working even harder: 

other doc, assistant, commander, and me:

even over here you can't speed:

me with the country singer Chely Wright who gave a free concert here:

with rob schneider, who came with wayne newton and neal mccoy: 

Rumsfeld and Gen Casey when visiting on Dec 24th:  

the hardest wisdom tooth I ever took out, with 4 (very curved!) roots!  

yes, it does get cold here!

me in front of the cafe that was blown up by a suicide bomber: 

inside the arena in the cross sabres, where saddam used to stand: 

outside pic of the arena (in the pic above, I am right in the middle of this) : 

Teaching a group of Iraqi National Guard with another doc (and translator):

flossing demo: group pic:

in front of an iraqi ambulance:

with some cool weapons:    an australian "steyr"

and my "godfather" pose with an ak47 and an uzi:

with an M16 with a custom scope:   and a grenade:  

Christmas dinner with some friends:

some random sunrise:    

and sunset pics:      

COMING HOME::::    

leaving the green zone on a blackhawk to balad Jan 8th:

SUPER COLD tents we stayed in while in Balad:

Leaving Balad to get to Kuwait:

all the docs in our unit:

stopping in Ireland on the way back to the States:

Got to the USA on Jan 17th, and back to NC on the 21st!

spent 145 days overseas

Reset Sept 23, 2004