The world's coolest SUV

An MRAP.

See the Ford Expedition to the right for perspective.

Move over Cadillac Escallade. Go play with your tonka truks, dinky little Nissan Armada.

That's because the MRAP is in the House.

For folks who don't follow the latest in military vehicles, allow me to introduce to you the Mine Resistent Armor Protected (MRAP) vehicle - the latest and greatest thing that is out there protecting our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines every day.

Designed specifically from lessons learned here in Iraq, this goliath represents the most advanced all-terrain vehicle the planet has ever seen. Able to take immense pounding from IEDs - and belive me, it can endure a lot - the MRAP is the closest possible combination of the security of a tank and the agility and utility of a Humvee.

When the apocolypse comes, you probably want to be in an MRAP. When the world is a nuclear wasteland full of mutant scorpions a la "Damnation Alley?" You want to be in an MRAP. Zombies? MRAP's got you covered.

There's pretty much nothing on this earth that wouldn't be improved with the use of an MRAP. Sure, Indy uses Corvettes as pace cars. An MRAP would be the pace car at a monster truck rally.

Now don't get me wrong. A Humvee is a pretty cool vehicle itself. And when it's up-armored (see below), it can withstand a ton of stuff. But a Humvee is so...yesterday.

I've never ridden in an MRAP yet, though I've sat in one. You're probably six to eight feet off the ground. The whole vehicle is very tall, but is surprisingly stable. None other than Gen. Petraeus himself, who got to take one out for a spin, said the thing has almost no tendency to roll despite its ungainly altitude.

Technically, the MRAP is not just one vehicle, but a whole class of vehicles, with varied different uses. There's the standard MRAP (above), and then there are a dozen or so variants, some made by different companies. One of them looks almost exactly like an armadillo on wheels, but unfortunately I don't have any photos of that one.

Still, these vehicles are worth every dollar we spend on them. Your tax dollars going to create these pricey, testosterone-dripping monsters is saved and paid back with interest by the lives that they are saving every day. More than a few soldiers owe their lives to the MRAP, and as these new machines rotate in and the venerable old Humvees are rotated off the more dangerous jobs, more and more American soliders will be able to get out alive and get back to their lives back home.

A slightly smaller variant.

Saddam's Party Boats

Saddam and his henchmen had a pretty cool setup here. This palace was kind of like a Hugh Heffner Playboy fun park in the middle of Baghdad. I keep finding evidence of this "Gone with the Wind" kind of opulence all around me.

The Al Faw Palace sits on an island in the middle of a large man-made lake. There are also smaller lakes and canals all around this place. Back in the day, the elite leadership of the Ba'ath Party would use this place as their private playground.

Saddam's Party Boats

Hidden in plane sight right next to one of the busy bridges that cross one of these canals is an unassuming, barn-sized metal building. A quick look will tell you it's definitely abandoned and forgotten. Although one of our coalition units is headquartered only a few feet away, it becomes obvious on close inspection that almost nobody comes here anymore.

Nonetheless, one day with a couple of hours to blow, I walked over to the place and walked right in. No fences, no signs, nothing to stop me. Certainly no safety precautions. OSHA, it seems, doesn't exist in Baghdad.

The pigeons make a subtle, deeply psychological

statement on what they think

of the Saddam Hussein regime...

Tucked inside this building are three oddly-placed boats, caked in dust, sand and several inches of pigeon droppings. They look rather haphazard, not coordinated in appearance. Although two of them sport similar blue-and-white pant schemes, the boats are so varied, you almost would think they had been bought on Ebay.

Two of the vessels are low in profile (see above) and look like they'd do for a quaint, romantic day on the river. The third boat has a raised deck that makes it taller and more awkward looking. It looks strangely like the ship "Orca" from Jaws.

"The Orca"

One of the two low boats has some Arabic writing on the side, which I obviously can't read.

Although abandoned and severely aged by neglect, it is obvious what opulence these boats once afforded to the old Iraqi elites. Through open windows you can see in to the carpeted walls, couches and expensive wood panneling, which remains intact, despite a little mold, spiderwebs and heat damage.

Climbing aboard the Orca, I discover evidence that earlier groups of Americans at this base did indeed pay a visit. In fact, I find to my surprise that it was indeed a group of Texans from my own home town of Austin, who left writings, Texas flags and other traces of their time in Iraq.

If you're from Austin, you know what this means...

In fact, they renamed Orca, or whatever its original name was, to the "Hippy Hollow" club. With no known history to go on, I can only surmise what this place was used for. From what you can find, it seems these Austinites turned this little Ba'athist vestige into what looks like a hip, happening...and possibly debauched...hangout.

Where once the elite Republican Guard Generals once had photos of honor of Saddam, a bunch of yahoos from Texas tacked up an image of a bad guy they obviously thought to be immensely cooler.

Some of the Graffiti one finds leaves a lot of interesting and intriguing questions. Was this a cool, relaxed hangout where guys just chatted and played a couple of games of poker? Or was something far more risque and beyond-the-regulations going on here? After all, there are more women now in the military than ever before, and despite the rules, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

At least that's the impression I got when I saw this gem among the writings on the wall:

Some female soldier is forever immortalized inside Saddam's party boats.

Who knows. But if I ever do write my novel about life in Baghdad, these boats may get a place of honor, and perhaps- with a little added poetic license - can help tell a little tale about the life beyond the war here at Camp Victory.