After five days at at tiny little outposts, I spent the last three at Forward Operating Base Hammer.

This particular base is surrounded by absolutely nothing but sand for miles. The command tries to make up for this by offering karaoke and speedy laundry service.

While walking through my tent I saw a soldier wielding a surgical instrument and plunging it into another soldier's bloody head. I didn't mean to be nosy but I had to ask.

"Shaun was hit by an IED (roadside bomb) two years ago," explained Matt, an Oregon National Guardsman and medic. "It got infected and he says it abcesses every now and then. So I drain it for him."

But Shaun didn't seem all that distraught about it. He showed me another notch on the back of his head from a second IED.

"Each time, my friends heard about it and thought I was dead," Shaun said. "The told the local paper and they've run my obituary three times."

Over people 250 showed up at Shaun's first funeral. Awful nice of them too, he says. He's thanked as many as he could for remembering him.

There is no point to shoes that aren't tan in Iraq.

***

Spent some time in a relatively peaceful town called Narwan that, like a lot of towns in Iraq, really needs water, electricity and other basic services. The kids beg you to take their picture everywhere. They beg the soldiers for pens and water. They're real cute until they start throwing rocks. But I suppose a kid will get away with what he can, especially if he isn't in school all day. I'd say more, but it's midnight and I've got a story coming up in a few hours. Should be a busy work weekend.

Kids at the Narwan market, about 20 miles east of Baghdad.