On March 24, 2016, readers of the New York Times were greeted with a peculiar headline: “John McCain: A Salute to A Communist.” The Communist in question was Delmer Berg, who at the time of his passing was the last known survivor of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

McCain’s salute was in spite of Berg remaining, until the end, an “unreconstructed communist.” The senator “saluted” Berg for volunteering to go abroad and fight to save the ill-fated Spanish Republic.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began when the military attempted to overthrow Spain’s republican government. With the Spanish military backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and Spanish Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, and Trotskyists taking part in the war, there was an outpouring of solidarity among the international left with the Spanish Republic (“Loyalists”), with some, like Berg, traveling to Spain to fight fascism, as part of the “International Brigades.”