In my home hangs a photograph of a rather large and deep hole on the side of an asphalt road. It is the aftermath of an improvised explosive device — or, in more simple terms, a homemade bomb — that went off just as the Humvee in which I was riding passed over it. The date was Oct. 13, 2005, and I was in Iraq, embedded with the men and women of Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team.