For ATF Agents, a Healing Trek Back to Waco : Tragedy: Two months after a fatal shootout with the cult, officers tour the ruins to help recreate the gun battle and to relieve their own memories.

For 100 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Saturday was a time to recall the bloodiest and saddest day of their careers--the Feb. 28 shootout with David Koresh and his followers.

Accompanied by counselors, the agents toured the blackened ruins of the former Ranch Apocalypse to help federal prosecutors recreate the events of that morning and to cope with their own memories.

“This is for their healing,” said Roger Solomon, an Olympia, Wash., police psychologist who has worked with the agents since the shootout. “When they break down and cry, it is cleansing, it brings them something like closure. It’s what people do when they go to the Vietnam (Veterans) Memorial.”

When these agents last visited the prairie fortress 10 miles east of town, they were met with a barrage of bullets as Koresh and his Branch Davidians opened fire. Four agents were killed and 16 were wounded.

The raid attempt marked the beginning of the cult’s 51-day standoff against federal agents, a siege that ended April 19 with an immense fire and the deaths of Koresh and more than 70 men, women and children inside the compound.

The scene the ATF agents faced Saturday morning was dramatically different from the one they saw on Feb. 28, when they arrived in cattle trucks and helicopters to search for illegal firearms. The pale wood and tar-paper buildings the agents tried to enter that day are leveled; the three-story structure that housed Koresh’s bedroom is gone. All that is left is a rusty water tower, a low concrete bunker and piles of charred rubble.

Although the ATF notified reporters of Saturday’s tour, and of a memorial service for the slain agents at a Waco church, officials kept tight guard over the day’s events. Agents were not allowed to talk about the experience of seeing the compound again.

ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said that while all of the wounded agents have returned to work, they and the others involved in the raid are still suffering the aftereffects of the shootout.

“We’ve been taught by the movies to believe that when an officer has to use deadly force, when he has to shoot somebody, it’s great,” Killorin said. “But this kind of incident goes straight to your soul. This (tour) is for the health and well-being and recovery and support of our people. This is not something done for the public.”

About 350 agents and their relatives attended a memorial service to pay tribute to the slain agents.