Fox News Correspondent David MacDougall
It's Day Two of our ten day stint with the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines in Ramadi, in Iraq's Anbar province.The area is a former al Qaeda stronghold which has suffered some of the worst fighting in the country.
Day 2: Camel Spiders & Grey's Anatomy:
We're still at Outpost Iron with 2nd Battalion 5th Marines, living in a stone building that used to be part of an old Bedouin village, just south of Ramadi. We're sharing the room with two Marines - Andrew Martin and Jeremy Lowe.
Martin and Lowe have become addicted to Grey's Anatomy. During our stay at Outpost Iron we've been subjected to all of season two and most of season three. Before this embed I'd never watched it.
Now, after repeated exposure, I'm keen to find out if Meredith and Derek ever find true love, if Izzie gets over Doug's death and whether George can handle a stable relationship or not. You get sucked in pretty quickly!
While editing some video late last night, cameraman Pete Rudden suddenly jumped about six feet in the air. Something had scuttled into our room underneath the door.
The Marines instantly identified it as a camel spider. The camel spider is legendary around these parts.
They're reputed to climb on your face at night, inject you with a type of local anaesthetic and eat your flesh. Well, that's what the Marines told us at least.
This particular camel spider was hand-sized, and extremely quick. The marines chased it round the room, while Pete and I watched from as safe a distance as possible.
Finally, the spider was trapped and the Marines used a can of cold compressed air to shock it.
Apparently, the camel spiders don't much care for the cold. After the usual photographs were taken, one of the Marines bravely stomped on the poor insect, putting us all out our misery.
Nobody slept much last night, fearing giant camel spiders would numb our extremities and slowly eat them.
Apart from watching TV and killing spiders, we've been spending a lot of time on the streets of Ramadi.
Today was the regular district council meeting for the city's south-central area. An assorted cast of characters showed up, many in traditional tribal robes.
Among them was Sheikh Khattab - a guy in his late 20s who gets his authority through his elderly father, a revered Sheikh in Ramadi.
Sheikh Khattab is a little unorthodox. He was one of the first leaders to join forces with the US military in this part of the city, after al Qaeda burned him out of his own home.
Now, he lives on a compound shared with the Marines and basically runs the local police station. We had the chance to talk with him and he's very passionate about believing the way forward for Ramadi is to work together with Coalition forces.
It's a message being heard more and more often in Ramadi, after the "Anbar Awakening" movement decided last year the best way forward was to kick out al Qaeda. It marked a real turning point in fighting in Anbar Province and Ramadi in particular.
After the meeting was over, we had the chance again to film in the street, with the Marines of Whisky Company providing security.
Peace brings prosperity to Ramadi and businesses are cautiously starting to open up again. We found one restaurant called The Desert Cafe which was selling rotisserie chicken and paid $10 for a whole chicken, wrapped up in flat bread.
We filmed the whole process for a story and ended up giving the hot chicken to a crowd of children who had gathered round to watch us work.
We wanted the kids to share the food among themselves, but one told me he would take it and give it to his family.
The Desert Cafe has only been open for a week, but already there's competition. Right across the street, The Date Palm Restaurant has just opened a few days ago. The owner also sells rotisserie chicken, but his menu has the advantage of also selling lamb kebabs.
Ramadi is starting to look like any normal town in the Middle East. It's difficult to imagine this was the self-declared capital for al Qaeda's Islamic Republic of Iraq just a few short months ago.
But of course permanent change doesn't just happen overnight and it will take a lot more restaurants opening up before all of the city's former residents are tempted back home.
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