Forty-one years ago, the Democratic National Convention happened in Chicago. "Happened" is quite an understatement considering the mass arrests and demonstrations against the Vietnam War that occurred.

So how does one mark such an occasion?

By getting all the police officers together to reminiscence about it:

Between men who almost spit out words like "scum" to describe demonstrators who descended on the city 41 years ago to the small crowd of protesters across the street, it was clear the days when the streets became a battlefield remain one of the most divisive chapters in Chicago history.

From the former cops came recollections, one after another, about what the cameras didn't capture, what the world didn't see on television along with the images of police wading into crowds of protesters, knocking them down and bloodying them with flailing billy clubs.

They told of bags of urine and feces, and bricks that were thrown at them, the heavy glass ashtrays dropped on them from hotel windows high above, the nail-spiked rubber balls laced behind their car tires and sometimes thrown at them.

And they dismissed any talk of a "police riot," as a commission famously called the scene, speaking with pride about how they conducted themselves.

[Image: ChicagoRiotCops.com]