Heartfelt post, tdracer. Many of us tend to forget that engineers are human and have deeply-felt emotions. It's not all equations and experimental results.
My father, who held a Mechanical Engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters degree in Marine Architecture from The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, designed aircraft carrier hulls, specifically the Essex class.
I never saw Dad cry often, but every once in awhile, when there was a carrier accident (e.g. Forrestal CV-59), he would stand staring out of our library's bay window for a long time, then turn, wet-eyed, to embrace me and my mother.
Engineers have brains - big ones. Engineers have hearts - bigger ones.
- Ed