Jesus Pablo "Paul" de la Garza, 1961-2006, is the only reporter ever to have quit my Thursday morning breakfast club, an informal gathering of mostly middle-aged newsroom veterans.

His problem: caring too much about the bigger issues of the day — war, injustice, poverty — when we just wanted to argue the minutiae of, say, precinct returns in West Tampa.

I laugh as I write this about Paul. I remember laughing about it then, years ago, after hearing that de la Garza, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, had castigated two other members of the club for not discussing "one single story in The New York Times." We were, admittedly, burned out on Bush, Halliburton, media-bashing, the Iraq conflict and the War on Terror. And it is hard to get a word in edgewise with some of the blowhards in the club — myself included.

But that's the kind of person and reporter that Paul de la Garza was, passionate and demanding. When he died on Oct. 29 of a heart attack at age 44, we lost an old-fashioned journalist whose most recent crusade was to improve the plight of health care for veterans.

He led one helluva life. He smoked Cohibas with Milton Berle. Interviewed Latin American heads of state. Beat Hodgkin's disease after exhausting cancer treatments. Drank far too much beer (if there is such a thing) at Four Green Fields pub in Tampa. Traveled the world. Toured the Middle East and Central Asia war zone with Centcom commander Army Gen. John Abizaid. Befriended Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, another proud Mexican American, after talking his way backstage at a Jannus Landing show. Loved New Orleans, crashed a band rehearsal at Fats Domino's house. Grew up in poverty and racism in South Texas, the very brown son of a shrimper. Adopted two Mexican children when he was posted in that country as the bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. Loved them and his wife, Georgia, deeply.

He went out the way all journalists should hope to go: His final story, on the Haley veterans hospital, ran on 1A just two days before his death. It was headlined "Report: Haley error cost life."

He wasn't perfect, so I won't lionize him. He exasperated some of his editors, and he apparently wasn't the greatest wordsmith.

But that is the lesson of de la Garza's life. Today's journalism is obsessed with "telling stories," sometimes at the expense of reporting facts. The narrative form of writing has eclipsed the importance of shoe leather, getting information that nobody else has. "He could talk anybody into anything," said Tom Scherberger, a Times editor and fellow breakfast club member, "including getting people to slip him information to put into the newspaper. Incredible."

De la Garza's art was befriending people, gaining their trust, offering them hope that he could right what was wrong if he could get the story. In the Times' obituary of de la Garza, the wife of Congressman C.W. "Bill" Young, Beverly recalls tears running down de la Garza's face as the two toured Veteran Administration wards full of injured soldiers. "I guess there's two different kinds of journalists," Scherberger said, "those who got into this business to tell stories, and those who got in to make a difference."

Paul de la Garza was clearly in the latter camp: Find out what is going on, and hold your government accountable.

He felt viscerally what others are too fatigued to say: We send young men to fight in a war we shouldn't be in. Then we take lousy care of them when they come back home, busted and broken.

At his wake, his University of Texas longhorn baseball cap sat on a table beside photo albums of him at work and at play. Congressman Young, until recently the fourth-highest-ranked in the House, was there. Over the funeral home speakers, the late Freddy Fender sang, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls."

Paul, on behalf of fellow breakfast-eers Tom, John, Gordon, Cam, Paul, Howard and myself, I promise we'll spend our Thursday breakfast this week talking about nothing but stories in The New York Times. Vaya con dios.

This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.