ABSTRACT
In mid-September 1937, Hemingway could write that the romantics and cowards among the Americans had pulled out, saying "Those that were left were tough, with blackened, matter-of-fact faces, and after seven months they knew their trade." For an American of the political left to become a hero, or even a worthwhile fightingman in the Spanish Civil War, was quite a feat. The Americans differed from their European comrades in having no background of compulsory military training. The Americans in Spain were men young enough to be learning from their experience. Spain was changing them and war was changing them. They were learning to kill and to take the risks of being killed, to regard life at once as something infinitely precious and at the same time a very cheap commodity. In Spain they were learning that sacrifices can be made in vain, and they had to comfort themselves with the knowledge that the struggle was more important than the end.
