This is not my normal schtick, but the Journal sent me out to the New Mexico Veterans Memorial Monday for Memorial Day Ceremony, and I was privileged to see something special:

There was a 21-gun salute, an F-16 flyover and a haunting bugler's taps Monday morning at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial.

But the most poignant symbol at the 2005 Memorial Day Ceremony was something no one planned.

Early in the solemn event, shortly after the color guard had posted the colors, the American flag almost fell over.

An unnamed veteran, near the front taking pictures, grabbed it to keep it from touching the ground. After fiddling with the base of the flagpole for a moment, he simply stood and held it.

For the rest of the ceremony, veterans materialized from the crowd, one after another, saluting sharply and taking over the sacred duty of holding the flag.

They wore full dress uniforms, street clothes, tattered demim and bikers' leather vests. One used a walker. But their aging bodies all stood, for those moments holding the flag, ramrod straight.

"You can't let it touch the ground," explained 55-year-old former Marine Jay "Doc" Schmitt, a veteran of Vietnam.