When finished, he slipped them onto a metal “ribbon rack” and pinned it above the jacket’s left breast pocket. Then he took a photograph to be sent to Army personnel headquarters at Fort Knox for double checking. The process has to be “100 percent perfect,” said William Zwicharowski, the Dover Port Mortuary branch chief, because “a lot of times, families are in denial and they want to find something that gives them hope that it wasn’t their son or daughter.”

Cpl. Landon L. Beaty, the Marine Corps liaison, recalled receiving a hard lesson in uniform assemblage when he first came to the mortuary last year. After inspecting a Marine’s uniform for loose threads, he thought he had found every one — until his boss found 73 more. Corporal Beaty voluntarily did three push-ups for each missed thread.

Working so intimately with the dead can take a toll, so the mortuary has a large gym and a recreation room where workers are encouraged to blow off steam. A team of chaplains and mental health advisers are available for counseling.

Mr. Zwicharowski, a former Marine, said many workers were haunted by the youthfulness of the dead, and by the fact that so many leave behind children. He counsels his staff to avoid researching their backgrounds, but he has not always abided by his own advice.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, he read a note placed in the coffin of a boy who died on the jet that crashed into the Pentagon. It was from a brother, thanking the boy for defending him on the playground days before.

“It was something I wish I didn’t do, and I learned my lesson not to do it again,” Mr. Zwicharowski said, fighting back tears. “If I knew the story of every individual who went through here, I would probably be in a padded cell.”

Mr. Zwicharowski was one of several employees who reported problems at the mortuary several years ago that included workers losing body parts and sawing off the arm of a dead Marine without consulting his family.