Catching Up

Check out Dan Barry on the smart car, and on Orange, Tex.; and read Dexter Filkins from Post 1: It is a lonely night on the rooftop of the government center in this rubble-strewn town, and Lance Cpl. Joseph Hamlin is talking about his life.

"I'm 19; I'll be 20 in September," he says, his face shrouded in the darkness. "I'm from western Georgia, on the Alabama line. LaGrange. They say it's the biggest little city in Georgia. It means 'the farm' in French. Lafayette was there."

Corporal Hamlin is at Post 1, overlooking downtown Ramadi from the northwest corner of the government center. His post is a concrete-block hut covered in sand bags. It has just enough room for two people.