Among the honorees at today's event were survivors of that "war," the staff of San Francisco General Hospital's Wards 5A and 5B and Ward 86. It was there in the early '80s that the first people infected with HIV were cared for and comforted -- that's about all they could do back then since there was almost no treatment.

They are still on the leading edge of the epidemic, fighting the virus and the stigma and discrimination still present 30 years later.

Events like today's World AIDS Day ceremony are a good time to remember those lost (like Norm Woodruff, the pioneering radio veteran who gave me my first job in the industry and the first person I knew well to succumb) and to remind ourselves that today, with some 34 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, the epidemic is still very much with us.

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AIDS Memorial Grove: SF's Best Kept Secret?