A View of Iraq – On the Road to Al Asad in January 2004

School, as in post-secondary education, is an incredible undertaking.  And it takes a lot of your time.  Especially when you have so many other things to do outside of it.  Well, this is one of the things I really like doing though there is little time to do it: My photography blog.  Another thing I really love doing is making pictures.  Here are a few that I took when I was in the Army in Iraq back in 2004.  This was done while moving, mind you – and before any formal education regarding photography.  The post production I did a week ago though.  But as a side bar, we are having an art and music festival at that very same school this coming Friday and I’ll be showing off prints that you might not otherwise see.  For details, click here.

We were on the road to recover one of my platoon’s teams that was supporting an armored cavalry regiment (I forget which one) at Rifle Base.  We were bringing a relief team from the 3^rd Signal Brigade.  We being the escort we were providing for the 3^rd’s TACSAT team that would relieve our TACSAT team.  This was day one of a five day mission – first stop, Al Asad.  My lieutenant (the platoon leader) and a few other soldiers were in the lead vehicle and we, (me being the platoon sergeant) I with three other soldiers, were in the trail vehicle.  I drove and snapped “no look” pictures (yes, like a no look pass in basketball) as we provided rear security.  If they look like I was composing these shots while looking through the view finder it is only because I had been taking pictures like this for almost a year by this time.  I had gotten pretty good with no look drive by photography.  There are a bunch of other details that I am sure you do not need to know in order to look at the photos so I will spare you.  Otherwise, this is a small piece of what Iraq looked like in January 2004.  Enjoy.