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Title: Report from Ground Zero: The Story of the Rescue Efforts at the World Trade Center by Dennis Smith ISBN: 0-670-03116-X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 18 March, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 (80 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Vivid, stunning & haunting...a CLASSIC
Comment: Can a book about a tragedy move you even more than highly-compelling television documentaries which allow you to relive the moment in images and interviews? The answer is YES. Report From Ground Zero by retired New York City firefighter Dennis Smith has haunted me for months. I found it absolutely riveting -- except I could not read this in long stretches it was so tragic, so horrifying...yet, in the end, so inspiring.
The TRAGEDY: the book's first half contains mostly rescue worker first-person accounts of what went on during what author Smith calls "the saddest day of our history," a day with "no center...no middle...no end" but "collapsed into that single instant at 8:48 a.m." when the first tower was hit. You WILL cry when you read it. You're going to feel you now personally KNOW the anguished -- and outraged -- people telling you what happened and you will see, through their eyes, what took place, feel their losses, visualize the people they knew who gave their lives, and be absolutely determined that this can never happen again.
The HORROR: film and tape can only show what is captured on film and what time (2 hours etc.) . But these extensive printed accounts bring it even closer to home -- and go on in detail, with no time constraints. There are so many accounts it's impossible to even condenses them here, but here are a few quick key highlights that show how incredibly compelling the written word can be:
--Bob Humphrey, Engine 4: "I watched about 20 people jump. I heard them land, but I couldn't see them. It was good I couldn't see them...." When the South Tower collapsed, he writes, "it was completely black. I couldn't see. I had no mask and no light, and it was hard breathing..." When north tower collapsed "the force lifted the cars off the ground and set them at all angles. I jumped down to the street and covered my heard. It was too terrible. Too much."
-- Firefighter Frank Vaskis, after the explosions: "There are body parts all around...." -- and it describes them.
--A firefighter walks to where the fire command is supposed to be and "as building 2 comes down this great wind comes, chops me to my stomach and basically pushes me all the way back through the same window I came through." It's pitch black for a
while....then gray, like a massive black and white photo...then cloudy.
--Nightmarish descriptions of the relentless PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! as the towers' floors systematically collapse, becoming huge concrete pancakes.
--People fruitlessly looking for loved ones. A firefighter whose son is a firefighter asks: "Have you seen my son?"
The INSPIRATION: No matter what, these firefighters and rescue workers plowed ahead, strictly focused on saving lives, not obsessing over the threats to their own lives. And how, in the last part of the book, even when the worst rescue work was over they worked at the building, removing debris, painstakingly sifting through all of it in the hopes that maybe someone might still be alive and that those not alive might be identified.
There are tons of books now about Sept. 11. This is one that'll be required reading in history classes 100 years from now...and hopefully will be used as a motivational book in military classes for many years to come.
Rating: 5
Summary: Every Testimonial Brought Me To Tears!!
Comment: This book brought out every emotion in me. I cried, well actually sobbed, I chuckled, I became angry and at times I found myself happy. I encourage everyone who wants to know and try to understand the feelings these people went through, not just on 9/11 but for weeks after. I actually felt close to the firefighters, police officers, and port authority. After reading this book. I found myself on the internet looking for a face to go with the names I had just read about. Finally I was able to see more than just a picture after reading the stories about these brave men, women and families. I have been to the ground zero site shortly after it happened so the images, street names, and landmarks were very vivid in my memory.
Dennis Smith did an exceptional job on writing this book. This must have been very difficult to write and i think it was just as difficlut to read it. His writing makes you feel like you are a part of this book especially when you see the amount of tears that have landed on the pages. I do not recommend someone to read this on a train going to work because if you don't shed more than a few tears there is something wrong.
I was fortunate to visit the firehouse from the CBS special so I could meet the heros of FDNY and they were some of the greatest and nicest guys I have ever met. After meeting them I was prompted to invest in this book which I have absolutely no regrets doing. So if you don't read any other 9/11 book because you are exhausted from hearing about this tragedy, at least READ THIS ONE!!
Rating: 5
Summary: We HAVE forgotten & Dennis Smith reminds us
Comment: After 9/11 the rallying cry was "We will never forget". Reading that book two years later reminded me that we have forgotten so very much about that day.
In fact there are things about that day we never really knew. I've never recommended a book to such a wide variety that I have. I think it is a must read. It also proves that the media (TV & radio) doesn't give us a total and unbiased picture. They tell us and show us what they want us to see and hear. Some of the facts that are in this book, to me as well as my son who also read it, were stunning. Facts that were either not reported or under-reported, and glossed over.
Make no mistake that this is a book about the emergency service personnel. That is the purpose and the focus. Dennis Smith provides a wonderful forum that allows those who have no experience in the field to get a real feel of what they mean when they say "brotherhood" and talk about their *family* in the houses. Yes, many other every day people lost their lives, but the emergency workers and their families experienced a high number of fatalities of people that were close to them, as well as having to deal with the subsequent search of the very site that took family and friends. They delayed their grief to continue doing their job-not for only their 'brothers/sisters' but for 'anyone and everyone'. And yet others went back to their houses and continued to answer calls to help others unrelated to 9/11 as they do to this day.
As another reviewer stated you will cry when you read this book and you will. But when you finally put it down, you will be glad that Dennis Smith wrote it so that you could read it. Glad for the men and women that allowed him to include their words and experiences. It is a powerful insightful book.
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Title: Last Man Down: A New York City Fire Chief and the Collapse of the World Trade Center by Richard Picciotto, Daniel Paisner, Chief Richard Dfdny B. Picciotto ISBN: 0425186776 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 30 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001 by Photographers of the New York City Police Department, Christopher Sweet, David Fitzpatrick, Gregory Semendinger ISBN: 0670031712 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 22 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Never Forget : An Oral History of September 11, 2001 by Mitchell Fink ISBN: 0060514337 Publisher: Regan Books Pub. Date: 20 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith ISBN: 0446675520 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Firehouse by David Halberstam ISBN: 1401300057 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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