THE white-haired veterans fought for years to defeat the Nazis and create Communist Yugoslavia. Now, the remaining vestiges of that country are under attack by NATO, and it hurts.
"We believed in Yugoslavia. It was a good country. I would like to live in such a country today, but it is too late. Everything is ruined," said Jovo Kapicic, a former army general, and later Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden and Hungary.
Every morning, the dwindling band of veterans meets in a smart Montenegrin cafe to discuss past heroics and present worries. Montenegro is the smaller partner in rump Yugoslavia, existing in a tension which has increased greatly since the expulsion of Kosovan Albanians and the NATO bombings.
Whereas most Serbs appear to have rallied behind the Yugoslav president in his battle with the West, many of the Montenegrin partisans accuse Slobodan Milosevic of betraying the legacy of Josip Broz Tito, founder of communist Yugoslavia.
"Milosevic is the main culprit responsible for the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The only real solution for us now is independence of our own," said Radun Mickovic, who served as a lieutenant-colonel in the second World War. In Podgorica, police in full combat gear patrol the streets as rumours fly that the Serb-dominated army might be planning a coup against this small, mountainous republic. Having witnessed so much warfare themselves, the prospect of fresh violence is depressing for the veterans.
"All we have done in this country over the past eight years is fight. Croatia and Bosnia yesterday, Kosovo today, maybe us tomorrow," Mr Kapicic said. While the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s have been bloody, they still do not compare to the ferocity of the second World War, when an estimated 305,000 partisans died fighting the Germans, as well as hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Vlado Bozovic was injured three times in the conflict, and, along with Mr Kapicic, received Yugoslavia's top military decoration in recognition of his war service. He said that despite the huge partisan losses, belief in what they were doing had led them on.
"We had a good party, a good organisation and the great luck to have a Tito," he said.
Tito died in 1980. The old partisans say that Yugoslavia, and its good name, died with him.
"We used to be respected by the whole world. During the second World War we were fighting alongside Britain, Russia, France and America. Today, we do not have a state and no-one respects us," Mr Mickovic said. Mr Mickovic said he had fought in Kosovo during the second World War against a band of Albanians who had sided with Italian fascists against the partisans.