Captured Iraqi armor sitting at FOB Morez.

City of Mosul and Mosul Air Base from the air. The airfield is in the middle ground with the city in the background.

Civilians houses overlooking FOB Diamondback in Mosul.

Commercial airliner that carried Oakes and the other men to Kuwait.

Constructing a perimeter of rails around the motor pool at the HHD 1225th Battalion HQ.

Convoy traveling down MSR Tampa. On-coming traffic has stopped to permit the convoy to go. Note that the convoy travels down the center of the road to avoid IEDs on the edge of the road.

James Cooley was born on March 6, 1986 and grew up in Caledonia, Michigan. In 2003 he enlisted in the Army. He received basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and after that Advanced Individual Training. He deployed to Iraq and served with a…

Jim Corbett was born in 1938 in Big Rapids, Michigan. He grew up in Detroit during WWII, attended high school in Big Rapids and graduated from there in 1956. He attended Ferris State University for two years until he enlisted in the Air Force. Prior…

Crash S.F. C-130 at FOB Q-West. In the foreground is the hole that the plane hit upon land with debris from the plane still in the hole.

Crashed Special Forces C-130 on the FOB Q-West runway on December 31, 2004.

Mike Davis joined the Air Force in 1973 after completing the 4-year ROTC program in college. He served in Active Duty as a Pilot Instructor and later went into the Air National Guard during the Cold War. He retired from the Guard in 2000 but still…

Merle Delagrange was born in 1950 in Grantwood, Indiana. He was newly married and living in Ohio when he was drafted in 1969. After training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado until he…