That's how a crime scene investigator (CSI) copes. At any crime scene, he or she is surrounded by evidence of mankind's capacity for evil.
So police brass tapped five of these men to help New York authorities climb through the smoldering remains of two of the world's tallest skyscrapers to determine exactly what happened and to help recover bodies.
Even such men, however, with their steely psyches and practiced detachment, were unprepared for that week's work.
With the 10th anniversary carrying its own force of inevitability, the CSIs have little choice but to remember.
Mike, John, Leo, Mark, and Terry. Vincent, Taggart, Rahill, Fisher, and Lewis, if you prefer surnames. Four cops, one civilian.
For them, this is a tricky week.
Michael Vincent: "I'm kind of a black-and-white person," announced the 59-year-old officer of 30 years and counting. "You're going to have to pull the information out of me."
John Taggart: "Believe me, a year or two in here is like 10 years anywhere else - just the amount. It's a very violent city." The officer, 49, of Roxborough, seldom gets emotional. What he means is that CSI work is different from most other police assignments. He used to take photos of mummies at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology before joining the force 20 years ago.
Leo Rahill: "A normal person is not designed to see death on a daily basis," said the 54-year-old civilian member of the crime lab. Rahill is a former housepainter from South Philadelphia who joined the force in the mid-1990s. Chattier than his colleagues, he said of CSIs: "Everybody has this stupid way of turning off that piece of your brain that wants to run down the street screaming."
