International Brigades, US Army
"Nobody is really prepared for that experience... for the horror and sheer terror of battle. Never before in your life have you been that scared. Never before in your life, have you been in a situation where in a few seconds you might be dead."
"A huge part of you wants to avoid battle. Get into a shell hole and not get out." Osheroff also warns that the mixed reaction of battle: fear and anxiety "can overwhelm you if you don't remind why you are there." However, his motivation of deep hatred towards Hitler and fascism got him through.
Osheroff served as a scout, map maker, and infantryman before his left leg was smashed by machine gun fire in October 1937, and was sent back to the US in 1938. With the defeat of Republican Spain in 1939, the "obstacles of a world war were largely unfolded," he explains. Osheroff volunteered for the US Army after Pearl Harbor, and he fought in infantry in mop-up operations in Normandy after D-Day.
In 1971, he returned to Spain, which was still under the fascist rule of Franco. While there he saw the extent to which the US backed Franco. In 1974, he directed "Dreams and Nightmares," a documentary on his experience in the Spanish Civil War and US involvement in Franco's Spain during the Cold War. It won best film in a European film festival. Claiming to be making a film called "The Shield Against Communism: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization," Osheroff got archived footage for his film from the CIA and Pentagon!
In 2000, he directed "Art in the Struggle of Freedom" - which was on poetry and poster art during the Spanish Civil War. Abe Osheroff is currently a strong opponent against the Iraq War and against military recruiters being stationed in high schools. In 2005, he launched the Peace Mobile, in honor of the late Bob Reed - a fellow Lincoln.
"ART IN THE STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM"? (INFO COMMING SOON)