[stm]

A fantastic post. These are images one does not see unless you were actually over there. One small correction, though, the one with the sniper laying in the prone with the M82 labelled "Polish Troops in Iraq" is actually an American soldier, not a Pole.

That guy immediately to his left is about to get his bell rung when that weapon fires! Man that thing is loud and has one hell of a concussion! That is why you do not wear your helmet when you fire that weapon, the compensator blows the blast backward to compensate for the recoil and it the pressure wave could possibly injure you if it got under your helmet.

[riverrunner]

You beat me to it. The side blast is awful from them. But as you can see the mag is out of the weapon so he is just posing for the pic.

[M. Espinola]

Thank you for you comments. The photo in question of the Polish or American soldier(?) was taken from this Polish military web-site: http://www.irak.pap.pl/cgi-bin/irak.pl

You may be correct. A few photos were taken from that Polish site & posted. The photo-text, all in Polish, then translated, was placed next to the photo, but since some of the photos did not display, the text remained, and may have been misplaced with another photo.

You are right, the flag looks American though. The location is 100% Iraq & the Coalition soldier in question is aiming in the direction of bad guys. :)