Early Morning Baghdad

To give you an idea of how far the place has come, check these out.
The 1st pic is of the Mortar crew that was literally right out side the door.
Every night, they traded shots back and forth.
The next few is the compound we were staying at.
There is a car we stopped. The passengers started acting squirrelly. After inspection, we find weapons. Notice all of the cash in the 2nd photo. They were loaded.
The last couple is of another car we stopped. We about crapped our pants when we opened up the trunk and found an IED. The detonators were in the car in the front.
These were all Oct 2003. Notice also we didn't have the nice up-armored vehicles.