"In the government’s eyes, the Branch Davidians were a threat."

"The bureau trained spotlights on the property and set up giant speakers that blasted noise day and night—the sound of 'rabbits being killed, warped-up music, Nancy Sinatra singing "These Boots Are Made for Walking," Tibetan monks chanting, Christmas carols, telephones ringing, reveille... I got to where I was only getting about an hour or two of sleep every twenty-four hours.'"

Malcolm Gladwell article in The New Yorker, drawing heavily from Clive Doyle's memoir "A Journey to Waco." Doyle was a survivor of the fire that killed 76 persons.

He and a group of nine or ten people had been clustered in a passage at the back of the chapel when, suddenly, he says, everything turned black. He was hit by a wave of unbearable heat, and fell to the floor. He prayed to God for a miracle. He saw a hole in the wall, and crawled toward it.

Outside, the F.B.I. agents manning the loudspeaker system were chanting: “David, you have had your fifteen minutes of fame. [Koresh] is finished. He is no longer the Messiah.” Doyle continues, “I looked at myself. My jacket was melting all over me and smoking. The skin was rolling off my hands. It was not blistering, it was just rolling off. I turned around and looked at the hole, and it was a big mass of flames. The thought that went through my head was: No one is coming out of there now.”