1 Yeah, I haven't seen many pics of guys without armor and helmets unless they were in a solid structure. Things must be fairly quiet for the chain of command to let them go like that. 

2 No magazine in the weapon either. 

3 True. But knowing The Army, the Ammo Dump was probably 5 miles away.

4 Also, he said the biggest problem now is the shoddy aspect of the $2 bootleg DVDs the locals sell.

Oh, email me at eddiebear1atgmaildotcom. I just didn't want to display them all.

5 I hope Cpt. Eddiebear is doing well, and I hope he gets back safe and sound.

I wasn't surprised to hear that things are generally quiet where he is.  I had the honor of interviewing a young Marine who was home for the
Holidays at the end of last year from the Fallujah area for the local paper, and he and the rest of his unit hadn't seen any combat at all.  The guys they replaced told them some harrowing stories about what they'd experienced, but he talked mostly about how kind the local people were and how his greatest difficulties were with learning local customs.

By the way, this was the most Marine Corps-intensive home I've ever seen.  His dad—a firefighter—was a taciturn Marine vet with a salt and pepper crew cut, and his sister was about to ship out to Afghanistan in a couple of months.  I really felt pretty worthless among these people, and I was flattered when they asked me to take a picture with them.

6 Well, it was interesting when he first was over there. Now, thankfully, it has slowed down a bit.

His big discussion now is that he may be redeployed to Afghanistan.

7 OK, he's got a magazine for the weapon strapped to the stock. Didn't notice that first glance.

But not wearing body armor is a pretty big thing. It means it is a big base AND there is very, very little threat. Otherwise, they'd all be armored like Iron Man. No commander wants to explain to his boss (or the family) that he lost a troop who wasn't wearing armor.