Each door is different.

Some are ornately carved hardwood, some are hollow aluminum. Some are protected by elaborate security systems, some by loose screen doors.

During the past year, the 40-year-old Marine major in the white gloves has stood at the front doors of homes in three states, preparing to deliver the message no family wants to hear.

It is a job he never asked for and one for which he received no training. There are no set rules, only impersonal guidelines. It is a mission without weapons.

Steve Beck trained to fight as a Marine, winning accolades as the most accomplished marksman of his class - a man who later earned two master's degrees in a quest to become a leader on the battlefield. He had hoped to deploy during the Persian Gulf War and definitely thought he would get his chance this time.

Instead, he found himself faced with an assignment that starts with a long walk to a stranger's porch and an outstretched hand. It continues with a promise steeped in the history of the Corps that most people associate only with the battlefield:

Never leave a Marine behind.

In combat, men have been killed while retrieving their comrades' bodies, knowing that the dead Marine would have done the same for them. It's a tradition instilled in boot camp, where Marines are steeped in 230 years of history and the sacrifices of tens of thousands of lives.

For Beck, that promise holds long after the dead return home.

In the past 12 months, he has seen inside the caskets, learned each Marine's name and nickname, touched the toys they grew up with and read the letters they wrote home. He has held grieving mothers in long embraces, absorbing their muffled cries into the dark blue shoulder of his uniform.

Sometimes he's gone home to his own family and found himself crying in the dark.

When he first donned the Marine uniform, Beck had never heard the term "casualty assistance calls officer." He certainly never expected to serve as one.

As it turned out, it would become the most important mission of his life.

Each door is different. But once they're open, Beck said, some of the scenes inside are inevitably the same.

"The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They always know," he said.

"You can almost see the blood run out of their body and their heart hit the floor. It's not the blood as much as their soul. Something sinks. I've never seen that except when someone dies. And I've seen a lot of death.

"They're falling - either literally or figuratively - and you have to catch them.

"In this business, I can't save his life. All I can do is catch the family while they're falling."

'We have a casualty'

Hours before Beck's first call, a homemade bomb exploded.

Somewhere in the Iraqi desert, in the midst of the rubble, lay the body of a Marine from Colorado.

The information from his dog tags was checked. Double-checked. And then the name began its journey home.

During World War I, World War II and the Korean War, the message arrived in sparse sympathy letters or in the terse language of telegrams, leaving relatives alone to soak in the words. Near the end of the Vietnam War, the military changed the process, saddling stateside troops with the knock at the door.

On that day in October 2004, inside an office at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Beck's phone rang.

"We have a casualty in your area," the voice said.

At the time, Beck wasn't sure what came next. He did know that he didn't have much time. Once the call is received, the goal for notification is four hours.

Troops in the field now often have access to e-mail and satellite telephones. So when a service member dies, his commander is directed to shut off communications back home to keep rumors from reaching the family before the notification officers.

Still, the pressure is palpable. The call often comes in the middle of the night. Officers must retrieve vital information from headquarters - the Marine's next of kin, the basic circumstances surrounding the death, addresses and phone numbers - and there is no room for error.

With each step, they get closer to the door.

Answering the call

Beck looks like the job: hard and soft. His white cotton gloves cover calloused hands. They lead to thick, regular-guy arms shaped by work instead of weightlifting, and a round, pale face with big cheeks that turn red when he hasn't had enough sleep, which is most of the time.

Beck's bookshelf is packed with titles ranging from the History of the Peloponnesian War to the 9/11 Commission Report. He can quote Clausewitz and Sun Tsu in regular conversation.

But he never strays far from his roots.

Born in Sand Springs, Okla., he still pronounces his home state "O-koma." He'll describe another Marine's muscles as "hard as a woodpecker's lips," and when he wants something done with precision, he'll require his troops to get it "down to the gnat's ass."

His car radio is eternally tuned to country stations because, he insists, "a day without country music is like a day without sunshine."

It's an Everyman quality that can't be faked, one that has become a crucial component in helping the families of fallen Marines.

After receiving that first call last fall, Beck grabbed for a thick, acronym-studded manual, The Casualty Assistance Calls Officer's (CACO) Guide. It offered only the basics:

"In cases of death, the following is suggested and may be modified as follows," it reads, in part.

"The Commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your (relationship), (name), (died/was killed in action) in (place of incident), (city/state or country) on (date). (State the circumstances). The Commandant extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss."

When he began the job as site commander at Marine Air Control Squadron 23, Beck knew that death notification was a possibility. The previous commander already had supervised three funerals in the region that includes Colorado and parts of Wyoming, Kansas, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Until that first call, however, Beck had plenty of other worries.

From their base among the top-secret radar installations at Buckley, Beck and his Marines are highly trained to support aircraft and missile operations. They also are continually training Marine Reservists and sending them to Iraq.

Since the beginning of the war, the Marines stationed at Buckley have made 19 notifications following the deaths of active-duty Marines. Fifteen of those were killed in action in Iraq and four died in stateside traffic accidents.

Beck personally has notified five families, but even when he isn't the one who delivers the message, he is involved.

Before leaving on his first notification, Beck asked for advice from two men in another branch of the service.

"One of the first things they said was, 'Don't embrace them. If they embrace you, keep your distance,'" he said, shaking his head.

"I didn't have much use for them."

No fork in the road

Different services have different guidelines for notification. In the Army, one officer is responsible for the knock, while another steps in to handle the aftercare.

In the Marines, the same person who knocks on the door is the family's primary contact for the next year or more.

There is no group of Marines whose primary task is death notification. Just as every Marine is a rifleman - expected to be able to handle a weapon and head to the front if tapped - any officer also may be called to make the walk to the door.

For Beck, that door is the "LOD" - the line of departure. The point of no return.

After all of the racing, all of the frantic scramble, it's the point where time freezes.

"Once I get to the porch, I stand there and take a deep breath. At that point, you can wait 10 seconds, wait 30 seconds, wait an hour - it's not going to go away," he said.

"There's no option. There's no fork in the road. You just stare down that straight path. You step up because there is no fork.

"I pick myself up, gather my thoughts and ring the bell."