William Langewiesche

WRITING from Iraq for Vanity Fair last November, in a posting titled "Rules of Engagement," journalist William Langewiesche began with the Euphrates and enumerated the towns strung along it in Al Anbar province: Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit, Haditha. Of the last, he noted, "Snipers permitting, you can walk it top to bottom in less than an hour, allowing time enough to stone the dogs.

I do not understand why William Langewiesche is being attacked for simply telling us what he observed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 ("A firestorm over hallowed ground," by J. Michael Kennedy, Nov. 19). The idea that all police, fire, rescue and emergency personnel are, by definition, brave, honest, ethical and heroic is laughable! These are professions, and as with all professions, the vast majority are good people trying to make the world a better place; and a minority are abusive, corrupt, dishonest, arrogant, repulsive and think of themselves as above the law. Langewiesche's responsibility as a journalist is to report what he sees, not sugarcoat it to fit the New York Fire Department's public relations profile.

William Langewiesche is the master of reconstructing disaster, a keen and patient observer who can make man-made behemoths come alive even as they die. A professional pilot and correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, he's brought his skills of technical analysis to bear in books and articles on the mysterious crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 five years ago and the dismantling of the World Trade Center wreckage after 9/11.

CUTTING FOR SIGN by William Langewiesche (Pantheon: $23; 247 pp.). "Cutting for sign," as the phrase is used by trackers, describes the act of following quarry--searching the land for footprints, tire treads, unsettled vegetation and other spoor left by the pursued. William Langewiesche, a correspondent for the Atlantic, in this skillfully written book, cuts for sign along the U.S.-Mexican border, looking to understand how it affects those who live along it.

Troll: A Love Story Johanna Sinisalo Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas Grove Press: 278 pp., $12 paper Those Finns. Remember the Rachel Ingalls novel "Mrs. Caliban" about the housewife who fell in love with the giant sea monster? In "Troll," young Angel, an ad photographer, finds a baby troll on the street, brings it home and falls in love with it. First, the problem of what to feed a baby troll. Second, how to hide it from the prying eyes of neighbors.

William Langewiesche was in Europe writing a meticulously reported narrative about the crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 when his editor at the Atlantic Monthly called. Turn on the TV, he said. The World Trade Center had been hit. The United States was under attack. Langewiesche was on the first plane headed for New York. He turned the Egypt Air piece around in three days, after grappling with it for six months. (It later won the prestigious 2002 National Magazine Award for reporting.

The story of the folded blue jeans won't go away. It rankles the firefighters who read about it and say it just could not have happened, not in all the chaos of the collapsing twin towers of the World Trade Center, not with people jumping to their deaths from offices. Yet there it is, vividly described in William Langewiesche's much-lauded "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center." As Langewiesche describes the event, a fire truck is pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

WRITING from Iraq for Vanity Fair last November, in a posting titled "Rules of Engagement," journalist William Langewiesche began with the Euphrates and enumerated the towns strung along it in Al Anbar province: Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit, Haditha. Of the last, he noted, "Snipers permitting, you can walk it top to bottom in less than an hour, allowing time enough to stone the dogs.

Several weeks ago, taking advantage of the recently restored service on the No. 1 subway line, I rode past the World Trade Center stop on my way down to Rector Street. Imposing metallic barriers have been erected at the edge of the platforms to block the passenger's vista. I was reminded of the zombie-like quality of the abandoned East Berlin U-Bahn stations en route to the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse before the Berlin Wall's fall.

Troll: A Love Story Johanna Sinisalo Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas Grove Press: 278 pp., $12 paper Those Finns. Remember the Rachel Ingalls novel "Mrs. Caliban" about the housewife who fell in love with the giant sea monster? In "Troll," young Angel, an ad photographer, finds a baby troll on the street, brings it home and falls in love with it. First, the problem of what to feed a baby troll. Second, how to hide it from the prying eyes of neighbors.

I do not understand why William Langewiesche is being attacked for simply telling us what he observed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 ("A firestorm over hallowed ground," by J. Michael Kennedy, Nov. 19). The idea that all police, fire, rescue and emergency personnel are, by definition, brave, honest, ethical and heroic is laughable! These are professions, and as with all professions, the vast majority are good people trying to make the world a better place; and a minority are abusive, corrupt, dishonest, arrogant, repulsive and think of themselves as above the law. Langewiesche's responsibility as a journalist is to report what he sees, not sugarcoat it to fit the New York Fire Department's public relations profile.

The story of the folded blue jeans won't go away. It rankles the firefighters who read about it and say it just could not have happened, not in all the chaos of the collapsing twin towers of the World Trade Center, not with people jumping to their deaths from offices. Yet there it is, vividly described in William Langewiesche's much-lauded "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center." As Langewiesche describes the event, a fire truck is pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Several weeks ago, taking advantage of the recently restored service on the No. 1 subway line, I rode past the World Trade Center stop on my way down to Rector Street. Imposing metallic barriers have been erected at the edge of the platforms to block the passenger's vista. I was reminded of the zombie-like quality of the abandoned East Berlin U-Bahn stations en route to the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse before the Berlin Wall's fall.

William Langewiesche was in Europe writing a meticulously reported narrative about the crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 when his editor at the Atlantic Monthly called. Turn on the TV, he said. The World Trade Center had been hit. The United States was under attack. Langewiesche was on the first plane headed for New York. He turned the Egypt Air piece around in three days, after grappling with it for six months. (It later won the prestigious 2002 National Magazine Award for reporting.

"Flying is another way of thinking" declares William Langewiesche, a writer who, as a former commercial pilot, thought as he flew. Rather than gym or civics, he suggests, high schools might offer lessons in the para-sail--a cloth wing with steering ropes, and the closest thing to bird flight. Gliding at bicycle speed 60 feet above the ground, there could be "an entire generation in which people truly had learned to see themselves from above."

"Flying is another way of thinking" declares William Langewiesche, a writer who, as a former commercial pilot, thought as he flew. Rather than gym or civics, he suggests, high schools might offer lessons in the para-sail--a cloth wing with steering ropes, and the closest thing to bird flight. Gliding at bicycle speed 60 feet above the ground, there could be "an entire generation in which people truly had learned to see themselves from above."

William Langewiesche is the master of reconstructing disaster, a keen and patient observer who can make man-made behemoths come alive even as they die. A professional pilot and correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, he's brought his skills of technical analysis to bear in books and articles on the mysterious crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 five years ago and the dismantling of the World Trade Center wreckage after 9/11.

CUTTING FOR SIGN by William Langewiesche (Pantheon: $23; 247 pp.). "Cutting for sign," as the phrase is used by trackers, describes the act of following quarry--searching the land for footprints, tire treads, unsettled vegetation and other spoor left by the pursued. William Langewiesche, a correspondent for the Atlantic, in this skillfully written book, cuts for sign along the U.S.-Mexican border, looking to understand how it affects those who live along it.