Everyone who deploys has their very own unique experience. Many come back with war stories; war stories of how sitting in their office all day bored them to death to war stories of how they watched a close friend and brother lose their life in a horrific scene. My story was a little bit of a beautiful experience. Through the lenses of surveillance cameras at all corners of the installation, I watched children play soccer in a field full of garbage and families live their everyday lives out on the fields farming and milking their cows. I watched newlyweds and family caravan along the highway shooting AK-47’s in the air in celebration. I watched children throw rocks and test the integrity of convoys. I watched as a farmer looked in horror when his cow ran through a convoy and was obliterated by the massive weight of the vehicles. I watched a man bring his battered child to the entry control point for medical care after a botched IED placement. As nice as to how gruesome my experience was, it was beautiful. It was beautiful to see these people live their everyday lives as if a war zone was not happening in their very own back yard. It amazed me that even though many Iraqi citizens had faced so much adversity and been through so much even as children, they could pick themselves up and move forward.