Today, Chris' wife stopped by and gave me this ...

an old Iraqi fiberglass helmet ... with bullet holes on each side.

I dont know if the helmet was "occupied" when this happened, but there is some brownish stain on the helmet that may look like dried blood.  

Chris picked this up at an old battlefield from the Iran-Iraq war.

Will try to post pictures tonight.

To be honest, this is kinda spooky ... I may leave it here at work for now ...
OZ

This is what he said about the helmet:

Yes, frankly.  There was a great deal more stain in the helmet.  We all sat around discussing the possibilities.  It seems a small fire occured in the helmet with the webbing inside.  Some guys thought that a tracer might have done that...but I don't know.  And we talked a deal on whether or not the stain was caused by flames...or if it was blood.  Opinions were divided, but I decided not to clean even the mud off for authenticity.  Yeah, well, US military customs decided otherwise and so I ended up cleaning this in a bucket with water and some kind of liquid detergent.  Damn it.

Oz,
Didn't you post a pic a while back of Chris matching your post?

Yes, it was a picture of him holding the helmet just after he picked it up in the desert.  I could not find the old thread anymore.

His wife just got back from Spain where she spent a few days with Chris (the training for the Iraqi army was suspended during Ramadhan, so Chris had some free time).  Apparently, he brought the helmet with him to Spain.  Gave it to his wife, who then brought it back here to MO, and gave it to me this morning ....  She told me that the Spanish Customs service grilled her about the helmet .... esp with bullet holes on the sides.

oz

Quoted: Yes, it was a picture of him holding the helmet just after he picked it up in the desert.  I could not find the old thread anymore.

Found it!
www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=8&f=32&t=172661&w=searchPop

Eric

Thanks for finding the pics.

Hmm .. the helmet I got this morning is lighter in color (almost desert tan).  Perhaps it is not the same as the one Chris is holding in the pic.  I will ask him if he picked up more than one helmet from the field.

oz