[Reference] photos of a US base in Iraq and also of downtown Baghdad
Posted: 2009-11-19 21:27
I got an email that had a powerpoint put together by an American Blackhawk pilot stationed in Iraq. I've added the captions he had on the slides underneath each corresponding picture. I omitted a few of the pictures in the slideshow, and just posted what I thought were the most relevant to PR mappers. If you want a pic of him sitting on a ZPU-4 or holding an AKS-74U, I've got those too 
After arriving Iraq, we got assigned our living quarters. Our housing areas are “containerized housing units”, or CHU’s for short. They are set up and surrounded by large concrete “T” walls to protect from shrapnel damage, or bullets. I’m lucky that mine has a bathroom inside (called a wet CHU). Others have to go to another trailer for showers or to the bathroom. Here is a view of the outside of U pod.
Here is in side the pod. This is the view outside my CHU. More T walls and CHU’s. As long as a mortar doesn’t land square on top of your pod, you should be OK.
The outer T walls are quite substantial. If one fell on your CHU, it would crush it like a beer can.
Remnants of soviet built equipment the Iraqi’s had (a BMP and a BRDM I think) There is lots of blown up stuff around, if you look.
Some flight line pictures. Pods with CHU’s are in the background. It’s hard to sleep so close to the flight line and runway with F-16’s taking off in full afterburner at 3:00 in the morning, and CV-22’s hovering by.
These are some really noisy ********
Good aerial view of part of the base.
This is a “HASS”, for Hardened Aircraft Storage Structure These are quite substantial structures.
Here’s one of the blast doors on the end of the HASS It takes a pretty good size bomb to hurt these.
This is the Euphrates river. I routinely fly over the Tigris too. I have also flown by the city of Babylon, which dates back to the third millennium.
One of the many Mosques that are everywhere. The following are some generic pictures I’ve taken around Baghdad and other places.
This is short final to one of the helipads downtown Baghdad. It’s always busy here at all hours.
How’d you like to try and drive through this mess?
These are the famous crossed sabers that you see in the media a lot.
After arriving Iraq, we got assigned our living quarters. Our housing areas are “containerized housing units”, or CHU’s for short. They are set up and surrounded by large concrete “T” walls to protect from shrapnel damage, or bullets. I’m lucky that mine has a bathroom inside (called a wet CHU). Others have to go to another trailer for showers or to the bathroom. Here is a view of the outside of U pod.
Here is in side the pod. This is the view outside my CHU. More T walls and CHU’s. As long as a mortar doesn’t land square on top of your pod, you should be OK.
The outer T walls are quite substantial. If one fell on your CHU, it would crush it like a beer can.
Remnants of soviet built equipment the Iraqi’s had (a BMP and a BRDM I think) There is lots of blown up stuff around, if you look.
Some flight line pictures. Pods with CHU’s are in the background. It’s hard to sleep so close to the flight line and runway with F-16’s taking off in full afterburner at 3:00 in the morning, and CV-22’s hovering by.
These are some really noisy ********
Good aerial view of part of the base.
This is a “HASS”, for Hardened Aircraft Storage Structure These are quite substantial structures.
Here’s one of the blast doors on the end of the HASS It takes a pretty good size bomb to hurt these.
This is the Euphrates river. I routinely fly over the Tigris too. I have also flown by the city of Babylon, which dates back to the third millennium.
One of the many Mosques that are everywhere. The following are some generic pictures I’ve taken around Baghdad and other places.
This is short final to one of the helipads downtown Baghdad. It’s always busy here at all hours.
How’d you like to try and drive through this mess?
These are the famous crossed sabers that you see in the media a lot.
