Blogoland

With 64 reporters now killed in Iraq, 45 of them Iraqis, there's no question that the war, by any measure, qualifies as the most hazardous, over a protracted period, that this generation of foreign correspondents has experienced. But as Ms. Carroll flies home, she would surely wish that she not be greeted with the garlands due to heroes. We, all of us, choose to be in Iraq, and are well rewarded, in terms of our experiences and professional rewards, for what we do.

And unlike the 27 million Iraqis who endure the conflict with no means of relief, we can always come home when we choose. As bureau chief for The Times, I tell every newly arrived reporter to face squarely the fact that assignment in Iraq carries a potentially fatal risk, and to heed the words of Robert Falcon Scott, the British polar explorer who was the last of his team to die on their epic return from the South Pole in April 1912. "We took risks, we knew we took them," Captain Scott wrote in one of his last diary entries before perishing in his tent. "Things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint."