"I don't think atrocities were what he had in mind in 1916."
Atrocities were never what any of them had in mind - but they happened anyway.
Sorry - still not getting your point.
"I would have been proud of my Dad "
My dad volunteered to fight in Spain when he saw the ride of fascism in Germany - he, along with many others, believed the Nazis could be stopped if Franco was defeated.
He was wounded and spent nearly two traumatic years in a Fascist concentration camp.
He came home to find that the 'Anti-Fascist' British security service had awarded him with a police record branding him a "Premature Anti-Fascist"
This led him to being blacklisted from his fairly secure and not too badly job and unable to find work elsewhere, so he was forced to work as a navvy, poorly pay, appalling conditions and almost permanently away from home until I was 14 years of age.
My mother always spoke of his time in Spain with pride, and nowadays there is not a day passes when I don't remember him with that same pride.
What's your point Al?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure.".
Thomas Jefferson
Jim Carroll