By Cathryn Conroy, Netscape News Editor
Respected Atlantic Monthly correspondent William Langewiesche has written a new book titled "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center" in which he levels a formidable accusation at the revered New York City Fire Department: He claims that before the Twin Towers fell, firefighters looted the World Trade Center.

It began with a shocking image...the north tower of the World Trade Center shooting black smoke into a cloudless September sky.

In one of the book's passages, he says that dozens of pairs of jeans from The Gap--still tagged and folded--were found stacked inside the cab of a Ladder Co. 4 fire truck that was pulled from the rubble. All of the firefighters from Ladder Co. 4 died on 9/11. He also claims that one office building near Ground Zero was "systematically rifled for valuables." Them's fightin' words. About 150 uniformed firefighters and widows of firefighters killed on September 11 demonstrated outside New York City's South Street Seaport Museum on Monday night where Langewiesche was signing books. They chanted "Liar! Liar!" and distributed a letter from Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta that accuses the author of "tarnishing the memory of our city's heroes with foolish, absurd, and unfounded accusations," reports The Associated Press.

Describing the demonstrators as "the boiling-mad Bravest," The New York Post reports that some fire officials assert the goods were blown into the truck from the extreme force of the collapse of buildings. Marian Fontana, who lost her Ladder 4 firefighter husband David on September 11, told The Post, "I think it's disgusting what [Langewiesche] is doing. He's lying."

In reply to:

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some fire officials assert the goods were blown into the truck from the extreme force of the collapse of buildings

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This would lead me to believe that there were such items found in the truck and I'm a little sceptical about that explantion as to how they got there. (still folded??)

So, by my reckoning, the writer wasn't so much lying as telling the world what they really didn't need to know. The fact still remains that these firefighters went into an extremely dangerous situation and ultimatly lost their lives.

I checked some of his other writings...he's known for getting into some sticky wickets...but he seems more credible than some.
I tend to side with Copago...not sure it needed to be known.

I can't speak for the integrity of the author or the shoplifting habits of Ladder Truck #4, however, as a fire dispatcher I can speak to the character of firemen in general. When they respond to an emergency, any emergency, they are too busy to go window shopping, much less pillage a store and in this particular emergency I doubt they had time or the mental inclination to pad their personal wardrobes. If jeans were actually found in the truck, and we have only the authors word on this, I would find it more likely that the looting was done by World Trade Center evacuees than emergency responders. Maybe the store owner ran out with what he could and placed them in the truck for safe keeping. We may never know the true story, but based on the circumstances and prior personal experience with similar professionals in question I will give the men of FDNY and NYPD an eternal benefit of the doubt.

I find it a lot easier to believe that this author has made these accusations in order to enrich himself that to believe that firefighters (who wound up dead and unable to defend themselves) took the time to nick a few pairs of jeans.

'Nuff said.

From the Sunday N.Y. Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/38177p-35963c.html

Thanks for that last one. Now, even if there had been a glimmer of truth in that story, and who knows? I do not condone people making big money out of it, on the graves of people who gave their lives.
Though I know they were human like all of us, I can tell you that the firefighter in my family (a pilot as well) is the person you'd like to have in an emergency.
For me, the firefighters that I've met are attracted to the job because they truly like helping people.
The whole story just defied logic of what I've seen on the part of firefighters and other emergency personnel in my own life.
Even if there were a grain of truth to the story of looting, and I just don't buy it, the guy writing the story had a lot of gall doing it in that way.

I've rarely met firefighters or emergency personnel who wouldn't help you out of a mess, whether they were on or off work...that's the way they're made or else they're in the wrong job. It's just not the kind of job for a person who's just out for a buck.

The Daily News is on target. These guys arrived to find two skycrapers burning, people jumping to their deaths, others running from the building on fire, and we are to believe that they stopped to load up a stack of jeans from the Gap. Wonder if they took the time to select just their sizes or if they planned on selling them on a street corner from the back of the Ladder Truck. There is no way that in this circumstance the story can be true! The author is a cad who smeared the reputations of dead men in order to pad his pocketbook. Who is the true thief in this instance?