Almost forgot...

Yesterday, as a sign of progress in Iraq, insurgents blew up a pipeline leading to an oil refinery. This picture was taken in the afternoon after it had been burning for a few hours. I don't know how far away it was, but that is a very big plume of smoke...




This is the same plume of smoke as seen from a different location on the installation about 2 1/2 hours later:




I heard last night at chow that it was a pipeline, but I wanted to wait until I saw that in the paper before I posted the pictures. This morning the sky was really obscured. I think it was probably the residual smoke.

This is the pond right next to where I took the last picture. That's a mosque to the right and an incomplete watch tower to the left. The watch tower was started by Saddam's people. I liked how still the water was...sometimes the geese swim in it.




Okay---last but not least today, here are some Marine aviators getting ready for a mission...