This is the final part in a series about the life of an embedded reporter in Iraq.

FALLUJAH, IRAQ — When it was time for me to leave Echo Company and make my way back to Baghdad, and then home, Capt. Pinion arranged to have me catch a ride with the “Road Show” — a weekly convoy from Camp Fallujah that brings a traveling PX (the military’s “general store”) out to units in the field.

Before I left, I spoke with 2nd Lt. Frederick, who had led a late night patrol the evening before and picked up a suspect. Seems that the guy in question was shining a laser light at one of the Marines in a Humvee, and, all things considered, was probably lucky to be taken in one piece. He was being processed in a little building Echo had set up apart from the main train station, with a sign spray-painted “Detainees Only.”

The “Road Show” shoved off in the early afternoon for a stop at Golf Company, on the outskirts of Fallujah. Our convoy consisted of a few large trucks loaded with Marines and the PX goods and a couple Humvees, one of which I squeezed into the back of, next to the feet of a machine gunner who manned his rooftop gun. As we drove, the terrain changed from the brown, winter desert landscape of Fallujah to green farmland, dotted with small villages and palm groves. We bounced through the countryside, keeping to the rough dirt roads for a bit before banging our way up to the highway, where we were more exposed and the danger of improvised explosive devices (IED’s) was much greater.

Golf Company operates out in the countryside. From what I had been told,...

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