Book Review: Decision Points by George W. Bush

Decision Points is a book I have put off reading for several years but finally got around to. I mainly put it off because I have essentially avoided reading any histories of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars as they hit a little close to home for me. I finally changed my mind because I decided enough time has passed. Don’t get me wrong, I was not angry about the wars, I fought in Iraq in 2003-2004 with the Big Red One, at best I am ambivalent. That is a combination of the military historian and the veteran in me. I decided to read Bush’s memoir because I was curious to … More after the Jump…

Murder in Iraq

This is kind of an amusing story, unless of course you are the guy that got killed.  When I was deployed to Iraq in 2004 with C Troop 1/4 Cav we had a platoon of National Guard soldiers assigned to my FOB to assist with Force Protection (Guard Duty).  The Guardsmen pulled duty in the towers ringing the perimeter of the FOB.  Along with the Americans, Iraqi National Guardsmen (ING) pulled duty, supposedly it was some sort of trust building thing although I was never certain of the logic behind that decision.  That set up the circumstances whereby the murder could occur.  I was at FOB Wilson, which is about … More after the Jump…

Some Videos from Iraq in 2004



I figured I would embed both of the videos I took in Iraq in 2004 on the site.   I have included brief captions below each video.   plus, I took them all personally, none of them are graphic and I don’t have and would not post any pictures of dead bodies.   The videos are pretty bad quality because the camera I had in Iraq was a very basic 3 megapixel POS. I will give it one thing though, it made it through the deployment where expensive cameras did not. Tripod, one of the coolest dogs I ever met is below.   How you can be so happy with only three legs I do not know, but his tail literally never stopped moving.

Tripod outside the Mess Hall on our FOB in Sep 2004.


The controlled detonation of an IED we found in the Ad-Dawr police Chief’s office in Dec 2004


Controlled detonation of an IED on the main road road through town 22 Nov 04

I have a whole bunch of pictures I took while deployed and if I get some interest I will post more with better descriptions.