Information about the Iraqi volunteers was brought to light in the memoir of Flint water crisis whistleblower Mona Hanna-Attisha in her new book What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City (Random House 2018). She devotes a number of pages to the Iraqi volunteers, especially to her...
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At the age of 70, I gathered my courage and learned how to use the Internet.  The first thing I wanted to do was find out anything I could about my father, Earl Frederick Vail.  I began with Ancestry.com.  Setting out on a journey that would take me I knew not where. I was...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 3, January 29, 1938                                     SNOWMAN IN MADRID Franco, Franco, Generalissimo, The little kids are making you Of effigies in snow.   Of you, Franco, Generalissimo! They’re making you and...
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On Beards –A Reply, By M. H. The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 2, January 13, 1938 In a recent issue of “The Volunteer for Liberty” we find a scholarly article deriding the many beard wearers in the International Brigades. A very astute and interesting article –to the beardless. But to the man...
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What’s In A Beard? Unattributed The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 28, December 27, 1937 Beards were introduced by Sampson an ingenious Easterner who put over the slogan “Hair for Strength” and made big money. Like other speculators he wrecked his career on a woman and ended his life in an orgy of...
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Look Pretty Please by Harry Randall, Brigade Chief Photographer The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 32, September 17, 1938   When the photographic section of the XVth International Brigade Commissariat was established, its tasks were seen as threefold: first, to make a photographic record of the XVth Brigade –where we have been, what we...
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                          Aaron Lopoff  ~ Alvah Bessie The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 33, October 6, 1938. During the days when we used to joke about withdrawal of the volunteers and wonder when the car was coming down the road with the...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 9, August 9, 1937. Lincoln Battalion Commissar by H. A. “Don’t let ‘em get Steve!” This is the word that travels like a flash of lightning through the Lincoln-Washington Battalion lines before and during the attack. Steve Nelson, Political Commissar of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, tireless worker. At...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 33, October 6, 1938. Among the unsung heroes of the Ebro action are the Brigade chauffeurs who bring the men food, munitions, and material. Because they work unostentatiously and efficiently, they have become accepted in a matter of fact way, as a cog in the war machine. And...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 35, November 7, 1938. Nick Myers, Commissar of Co. 1, Mac-Pap Battalion was wounded in the attack on Asco by the same shell that laid out Lionel Edwards the Company Commander. “I heard it coming” he says “but I was in a hurry and kept going. I ran...
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