The young police officer that was standing next to me stepped closer and said, just above a whisper in a thick New York accent, "It's the bodies of twenty-six firemen that were found in a collapsed stairwell this morning." Tears welled up in my eyes, as I forced a sob to stall in my throat. I felt a halo of dignity surrounding the small procession. Two young soldiers standing at attention across the narrow street had tears streaming down their faces. Perhaps, they had seen too much at the site, perhaps we all had. The insidious climate of the "pile" created an intense sensitivity to emotional stress, all our nerves were raw. The disaster, at that instant, moved from the dreamlike to the real. Without any mercy, reality slapped me right across the face.

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