Anyone who's read my other site or is familiar with stuff I've written knows that I'm in love with AVMRA, aka the American Veteran Motorcycle Riders Association. The group is just like it sounds: vets -- the majority of whom fought in Vietnam -- who ride motorcycles. And they're a raggedy-looking bunch of motherfuckers, they'd be the first to tell you: Long, ratty hair; beaten-up leather with patches and pins; at-least-two-packs-a-day habits. Instead of the booze they once were able to drown their sorrows with, they down coffee, lots of it. Or they keep pickling their insides away, as if that's going to help. It doesn't, but it's a connection to other people who've gone through hell, anyway.

Tonight, my assignment was to cover the memorial of a soldier who was killed over in Iraq Sunday. There were at least 100 people there by the war tank on the corner of Broad and Oak, including 30 or so of my AVMRA men and women. (Every single war-themed event, good or bad, without fail, you better believe there will be representatives from their group.) There was a service, with a Catholic Bishop and everything, as well as a Color Guard from the local Legion and VFW.

I've covered enough of these to be able to pretty much get by without getting emotional, and I pride myself on that. But as the old vets with the rifles shot off the 21-gun salute, damn it if those rag-tag shells of men in beaten-up leather didn't stand straight as arrows, saluting their flag as if they were the kids they used to be before the war beat them down.

And damn it if I didn't choke up.