This magazine's coverage of the war in Iraq has chronicled the often overlooked efforts of military engineers who set the stage for battle, breach obstacles and clear the way for advancing combat troops. Their work is difficult, dangerous and deadly, a point driven home this week by ENR Associate Editor Tom Sawyer. Advancing with elements of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division, Sawyer's story of the engineers' war speaks of heroism and death. NEW DIGS: Sawyer (left) and Wright found working space at Baghdad airport. A firefight with a large Iraqi force at Saddam International Airport caught the 11th Engineer

(Photo courtesy of Airis Corp.) In the cavernous space of Worldport, a new United Parcel Service air cargo facility in Louisville, some 122 miles of conveyers whisk packages through at up to 450 ft per minute. Within 15 minutes, a piece of mail is verified, sorted and sent on its way. Until its completion last fall, up to 1,800 construction workers at a time had been hard at work erecting 75 million lb of steel, installing 4,500 miles of fiber- optic cable and erecting the 4-million-sq-ft building. In the four years of construction on the $1-billion project, scores of contracts