One small step for a soldier, one giant leap into only God knows what.
Passing U. S. Army convoys threw bottles of water to hungry and thirsty Bedouins in the western desert of Iraq.
Feral dogs, which tried to befriend Coalition soldiers, were common in Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
In the Diyala province.
Men cross the Tigris River.
Young boys react to a group of American soldiers in the Diyala province.
A group of women near Aziz Balad Street in the Diyala Province.
Women gather fire wood in the rural region of the Diyala Province.
A pickup game of football in a field in the Diyala Province. Despite the recent invasion by Coalition Forces, or perhaps because of it, people continued to work, play and celebrate.
A goat herder drives his goats along the shoulder of Aziz Balad Street in the Diyala Province of Iraq.
Women gather and carry fire wood, Diyala Province.
A guard house for one of Saddam’s Baghdad palaces.
Men have a heated discussion outside of a shopin the Habna neighborhood north of Baghdad.
Destitute family living in ruins near Sadr City, northwestern Baghdad.
A boy with the luxury of a cart gathers and transports fire wood, Diyala Province, Iraq.
Soldiers in Hummvees pass a truck carrying farm workers on Aziz Balad Street in the Diyala Province, Iraq.
Children labor to farm the rough land outside the Balad air base.
Farmers work their field, creating irrigation ditches fed by the Euphrates River.
A farmer in a field, Diyala Province, Iraq.
A young girl observes a column of U.S. Army tanks as they move through the streets of Tikrit.
One of them
Inside vacated barracks in the western Iraq desert. A mews for falcons is to the right of the entrance.
Iraqis who had occupied this small living area left urgently when news of the invasion reached them.
This meal was quickly abandoned with news of the Coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Inside a Republican Guard building in the western desert of Iraq.
The roof of an American Hummvee.
A twisted shirt at an air base in Iraq.
This office was within a secure building on the Balad air base. After being hastily abandoned these offices were searched by U.S. Special Operations personnel for intelligence.
Instructions found inside an Iraqi air base on how to deploy a parachute from a MiG fighter jet.
Silhouettes of aircraft used by U. S. forces found inside a training center.
Images of Saddam Hussein were ubiquitous in Iraq in 2003.
Humor in English painted on the wall of an Iraqi Air Force training room.
American GI graffiti, early in the war with optimism about its outcome, surrounds a sketch of an Iraqi soldier trouncing an American flag.
Paintings of falcons shredding the American flag were found commonly in military installations in Iraq.
An Iraqi soldier, overseen by a falcon, slashes the American flag.
A U. S. Army convoy, with helicopter escort, makes its way north across the desert during the early days of the invasion, March 2003.
Coalition convoys took Highway 1, Iraq’s showcase highway, from Kuwait toward Baghdad for the first few miles during the invasion. However, news that columns were coming under frequent suicide attacks from private trucks laden with explosives forced convoys to dismount during frequent halts. Consequently, in order to keep forward momentum, convoys were rerouted to secondary roads. Here Specialist Brandon Wagner, a U. S. Army medic, assumes a defensive posture.
Iraqi weapons were destroyed by any means necessary, including driving over them with tanks. These rifles were cached at the Imam Ali air base, which is very near to Ur, believed to be the birthplace of Abraham, the patriarch common to all three religions of the region (Islam, Judiasm, Christianity). The air base is 6 km from the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a temple built in the 21st century BC. The area was saturated with Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary fighters, who had ambushed an army unit just 6 days earlier, killing several soldiers and taking several POW’s, including Jessica Lynch.
The crew of an M1 Abrams tank, positioned near Nasiriyah, takes a break for lunch.
The commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle barks orders at a soldier during a break.
Sergeant First Class Jeffery Moline at an enemy prisoner of war (EPW) holding area near Nasiriyah, Iraq.
A driver’s view through night vision goggles at the vehicle in front. The invasion took place on a new moon in order to reduce visibility and detection.
In order to avoid destruction of his Air Force, Saddam ordered that all aircraft be towed off the air bases and parked near private homes, knowing that Coalition Forces would be reticent to risk collateral damage to civilians and private property by destroying the aircraft. The strategy was ineffective, however, since the U.S. possessed precision ordnance that could pinpoint and destroy the cockpit of a MiG without doing much damage beyond the aircraft.
An external 50 caliber machine gun on a MiG fighter jet destroyed by a precision bomb dropped by U.S. aircraft.
This aircraft bunker at Balad air base had housed several MiG aircraft. Plans found at a nearby building indicated that these bunkers had been built by U.S. contractors during the 1980’s.
Specialist Christopher Jensen investigates an exhaust passage for jet blast inside an aircraft bunker at Balad air base.
The tail of a MiG fighter jet.
Controls inside the fuselage of a MiG fighter jet.
Apache helicopters, which had been refueling, suddenly take off and head west to protect a lead element of Fifth Special Forces who came under heavy fire as U.S. aircraft and tanks attacked the Medina Division. This photograph was made on the Iraqi side of the Forward Edge of Battle Area (FEBA).
The 934th FST was inserted into the thick of battle when Coalition Forces struck the elite Republican Guard Medina Division. F-15 jets, A-10 jets, Apache helicopters bombarded Soviet T-72 tanks from overhead. U.S. tanks and heavy artillery immediately west of the FST lobbed ordnance overhead to the Soviet T-72 tanks located just to the east.
Precision bombing of runways at intervals prevented Iraqi fighter jets from becoming operational.
Iraqi targets were disabled by small ordnance with highly accurate guidance systems dropped by Coalition aircraft.
Several members of the 934th FST build camaraderie and muscles with makeshift weights built from flywheels and rods scavenged from an abandoned factory. Left to right Sergeant Brockert, Lt. Colonel Borrego, Major Florio, Sergeant Nguyen, Major Bass and Lieutenant Beaulieu.
The 934th FST came under daily mortar and rocket attack. Soldiers would check their watches at the sound of an explosion since EOD detonated ordnance on the hour and half hour. Explosions at any other time were incoming hostile rounds.
When the 934th FST jumped north to Al Sahra air base just outside of Tikrit, it was replaced by another FST which took a direct hit less than a week later. Several soldiers were seriously wounded, including its commander.
On the eve of Saddam’s birthday in 2003, insurgents launched a coordinated attack on the 934th FST at the Balad airfield. At the time very few US troops were at the airfield which did not have a perimeter. When the attack started two of the team (of 20) rushed to the perimeter and manned lookout towers while a tank company also rushed over. Apache helicopters, garrisoned on the other side of the airfield, took off and between those assets the insurgents were thwarted with 7 killed.
A AH-64 attack Apache helicopter hunts Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary fighters at the perimeter of the 934th Forward Surgical Team’s encampment in the desert west of Nasiriyah.
An enemy combatant vehicle stopped near a checkpoint in the Iraqi desert.
The remains of an enemy combatant who had been blown out of his vehicle.
Bodies of Fedayeen Saddam fighters strewn from destroyed vehicles.
Debris inside a Republican Guard recreation hall left by Coalition bombing, Al Sahra air base near Tikrit.
Remnants of combat at Al Sahra air base.
Bomb blast and buildings penetrated by depleted uranium.
Sleeping quarters destroyed by bombing.
A huge sandstorm approaches Al Sahra air base, which would become Forward Operating Base Speicher.
Fuel tanks cached under bleachers in an athletic stadium at Al Sahra air base near Tikrit.
Contrary to common belief, there was a general order during the Iraq war against raising the American flag on any Iraqi property since this was not an imperial war. Some soldiers chose to ignore the order.
Memorial service for three members of a Blackhawk helicopter downed near Forward Operating Base Speicher.
Lieutenant Roger Beaulieu returns with an empty truck after trying to retrieve mail for the FST. Since the FST was highly mobile and far forward it did not receive any mail from home for at least 6 weeks, and after that the mail only trickled in. Much of it was lost.
A U.S. Army soldier, exhausted from the heat and months of combat, rests in a Republican Guard building, Al Sahra air base.
A brave young girl returns alone from a local store with two ice cream cones and a look of disdain in her eye for the invaders.