On 10 May 2003, 1-37 Armor Battalion left Ray Barracks in Friedberg, Germany and deployed to Iraq. Upon arrival in Baghdad in early June, 1st Battalion quickly established their forward operating base (FOB) on Baghdad Island, a small peninsula on the Tigris River, and formerly a recreational resort and amusement park for the elite of Saddam Hussein's Regime. Over the course of the next eleven months, the soldiers of 1st Battalion conducted thousands of area security patrols, and several hundred operations ranging in size from a few