on the unit, it takes no small effort to stay there. The physical fitness test has to be passed every three months. So the first thing they do when they get to work every day is run or work out in the gym at their south Phoenix office. Other cops just have to pass a less rigorous fitness test once a year.

The hours are long and call-outs in the middle of the night common. Each SAU squad is on standby two weeks and two weekends a month. That means families are often abandoned at baseball games, at church services, in the middle of dinner. They've learned to take separate cars.

Ed Warner wanted to be on SAU so badly he tried for seven years. He'd study the procedures manualfor much of the year before the test. One year he missed the run by seven seconds. The year he finally made it, one-tenth of a point separated the top candidates. Twenty-five people took the test that year; SAU took three guys.

Warner has been on the Phoenix department for 13 years. He worked various assignments, including detectives, before he finally made SAU two years ago. "If you want to work with the best, you work harder to get here," he says, noting: "It takes more to get here than it takes to get promoted."

Warner is drawn to the excitement of the job and the camaraderie of the unit. "Our lives depend on each other and it's such a cliché to say that but it's true," he says. "Right