Monday, May. 26, 2008

Firefighters at Pentagon get their due, at last

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Remember the Pentagon.

It burned, too, dismembered by the same terrorists who brought down the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Circumstances, though, have rendered the Pentagon a Sept. 11 afterthought. It's the place that survived.

At the World Trade Center, 343 New York City firefighters died. At the Pentagon, every firefighter returned home. But not all came back safe and sound. The Arlington County Fire Department subsequently lost 9 percent of its force to health-related retirements.

But still.

The FDNY battalions marched into the World Trade Center and were entombed there. The Arlington crews subdued a different beast, smaller but still lethal, and in their victory they've remained largely anonymous.

Until now.

Six years on, the Arlington firefighters and their compatriots are getting the accounting they deserve.

In "Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11," authors Patrick Creed and Rick Newman detail what happen- ed after American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the nation's military command center at 530 mph, killing 189 people, including the 64 people aboard the jet.

The plane hit at 9:37 a.m. It weighed 182,000 pounds, carried a bit less than 11,000 gallons of jet fuel and plowed forward, Creed and Newman write, "like a horizontal volcanic eruption." In eight-tenths of a second, the plane disintegrated. Six- hundred-thousand bolts and rivets blew out as shrapnel. The concussion rattled fire station doors nearly a mile away.

"What the (expletive) was that?" Arlington firefighter Derek Spector exclaimed.

"That was a (expletive) explosion," firefighter Brian Roche replied.

That's how firefighters talk. The way anyone talks when they have been hit in the gut.

Honest reporting prevails

There's a lot that can go awry in a big fire and rescue operation. Competing agencies can't communicate. Turf fights erupt.

Egos intrude. Honest reporting attends to these mishaps.

One example, recounted in "Firefight": An exhausted Arlington crew was resting in the Pentagon courtyard when several District of Columbia firefighters tried to steal the crew's air packs and face pieces.

About such perfidy, only one thing could be said.

"What the (expletive)?" Arlington fire Capt. Brian Spring shouted.

A lot, too, can go wrong in reporting such a story.

Misimpressions can coalesce into convenient anecdotes. The facts can grow soggy with sentiment. The fraternal order of those who were there fends off feelers from those who were not.

"Firefight" seems to get it right, as best I can tell.

Everything gets its proper measure. Mistakes happen, but steadfastness is the enduring virtue. At one point, an ailing firefighter sneaks behind an engine to vomit, knowing that if the medics see him, he'll be yanked off the biggest job of his career.

Technical competence is esteemed. When hulking Truck 105 couldn't fit through a Pentagon tunnel, officers cut the rear tiller cab off with an electric saw. The truncated vehicle squeezed through with two inches to spare.

Good management matters. By Sept. 21, incident commander Jim Schwartz, now the Arlington County fire chief, and his colleagues could relinquish control to the FBI. Arlington's deft crisis management is taught as a case study to Harvard Business School students.

Creed and Newman appear well-suited to capturing this story.

Creed is a volunteer firefighter and Army civil affairs officer.

He's obviously got heart. At one point, after Creed deployed to Iraq, he conducted one evening interview with an Arlington firefighter by satellite phone while his base was under mortar attack.