Herbert Matthews, describing the last parade of the International Brigades in Barcelona on 28 October 1938, said of the thin, drawn, shabby, diseased men:

They were not clad in spic-and-span uniforms; their garb was nondescript; they had no arms, and they could not seem to keep in step or in line. But every one who saw them–and above all those who fought with them–knew that these were true soldiers.

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