The Mad Max War

Remember those cool Mad Max movies? Remember all those neat made from scratch vehicles all those post apocalyptic warriors road around in? Well, life here in Baghdad has been reminding me quite a bit of those movies. I sometimes feel that I'm inside a Mad Max movie. Due to the insugent situation over here and the danger of the IEDs out on the road we have had to modify our existing vehicles and develop many new types of vehicles to help protect us from those threats. So many of these vehicles, or modifications to vehicles, really remind me of those movies for some reason. Take a look for yourself and see what you think.

This is one of the ubiquitous Humvees. It probably doesn't look like the Humvees you're used to seeing. You can see that armor has been added to it and a protected cupola for the top gunner. The other appendages are used in other ways to help protect the troops.

Here are a couple of pictures of a "Stryker" vehicle. We have some Stryker Brigades out here. There's also the obligatory picture of myself in front of a Stryker to actually prove I am where I say I am. See Cindy, I'm all in one piece and have been eating probably too well!

Above are a few pictures of some of the vehicles used by the engineers when they are clearing routes or responding to IED reports.

Then there are the "normal" vehicles that you are probably used to seeing every day. Troop trucks, bulldozers, Semi tractors. All of them have been modified to help them survive over here.

I hope you enjoyed the photos of some of the more odd looking vehicles we have around here.

By the way. Summer is in full swing here. This last picture was taken today just 10 minutes ago at almost 3:00 pm today. Happy Father's Day. 124! Gotta love Summer in Iraq!