The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

I have always admired and envied the Americans who went to Spain in the 1930s to fight for the Republic against Franco and the fascists, who were backed by Hitler and Mussolini.  They were called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.  Many of them were Communists, and they numbered about 3000.  It is believed that about 800 were killed.

The last surviving member of the Brigade, Delmer Berg, died earlier this week at age 100.  Mr. Berg was a life-long radical.  He returned to the U.S. in 1939 with shrapnel in his liver from an Italian bombing.  He was drafted into the U.S. Army in ’39 and assigned to an anti-aircraft battery in New Guinea.  Discharged because of his injury, he joined the Communist Party in ’43, served as vice president of his local chapter of the NAACP, helped to organize farm workers, and protested the war in Vietnam.  

According to the obit in the Times (March 3, p. 21) he said last year, “It bothers me a little that at 99 you’re going to die any minute, because I have a lot of other things I want to do.”