The remarkable true-life adventures of Samuel Dreben, the fighting Jew - Part 2

By Gerard Meister

Previously:

We pick up this remarkable saga in May 1910, when Sammy opens a new chapter in his life as a freedom fighter in the many Central American and Mexican Revolutions during the decade before World War I.

The revolution in Guatemala failed; not the first time a battle was lost to the forces of darkness, and surely not the last. Stung by defeat, and unaware that redemption was already waiting in the wings, Dreben slipped back into Panama, a step ahead of the firing squad.

May 1910 found the Canal Zone looking like a Grade B movie and a bad one at that. The local cantinas (saloons) were half-filled with agents-provocateurs plotting the overthrow of one dictator or another, while the other half of the saloon held spies for the same dictators working to keep their benefactors in power. Intrigue was everywhere.

One night, while Dreben was in his favorite bar trying to wash away the bitter aftertaste of Guatemala, an argument boiled over. A gang of toughs set upon a tall American in a white linen suit. Sam, on his feet in a heartbeat, charged into the knot of thugs and bowled over enough of them to help the white suit make it out the door. Once they were safe, Sammy asked what the hell was going on in there. The stranger explained that he was General Victor Gordon, recruiting troops to fight for the freedom of Nicaragua and the gang of cutthroats was on the payroll of General Zelaya, the strongman in power there. "My friend," the General said, "our army could sure use a guy like you! Any time you need a job, you got one."

Sam paused for a moment. After the failure in Guatemala, he'd been thinking of getting back into his blue serge suit and selling shirts again. "It's just not for me," Sammy admitted to himself as the moment passed, and the shirts and suit were put back in the closet, and the battle joined. So well was it joined that Dreben suffered his one wound in twenty years of warfare. As he turned away to light a cigarette, Sammy was shot in the seat of the pants. But this was no laughing matter. In the days before sulfa and antibiotics such wounds were serious indeed, but not to Sam. "[t]he sons-of-guns dassent kill me," he said, laughingly. "There ain't a Jewish cemetery in this country!"

The success of the revolution in Nicaragua was a milestone in Dreben's career. Not only did the revolutionary committee award him $2000 in gold as gratificacion for his role in the cause of freedom, but the accounts of his newfound prowess with the machine gun and his bravery in the line of fire grew to heroic proportions.

In 1911, Honduras was caught in a tug-of-war between two rival banana moguls. One of them, Sam Zemurray of Cuyamel Fruit, and like Sam, an immigrant, felt that he wasn't getting an even split of the banana business from the regime in power, which favored his rival, the Vaccaro Brothers of Standard Fruit based in New Orleans. Zemurray called on General Lee Christmas, most noted of the Central American soldiers of fortune, to overthrow the government. In turn, Christmas asked Dreben, who was in New Orleans looking for a cause, to accept the rank of Colonel in the rebel army and man the lone machine gun the General had in his arsenal. Dreben agreed. Zemurray purchased a small, decommissioned U.S. naval ship, the Hornet, and the invasion of Honduras was on.

After being put ashore, the small band of adventurers marched up the coastal plain from Trujillo to the port city of La Ceiba. They had to pass through several villages where federal sharpshooters, barricaded high up in the local church steeple were firing freely, slowing the advance. Whenever the column got pinned down the call went out for Dreben and his machine gun. Sam's pinpoint strafing would soon roust the federalistas from their perch, allowing the parish priest to come out of hiding and bless Sammy for his good deed. The regiment then resumed its march.

The campaign nearly ended when General Christmas, tricked by an ambush, was captured and thrown into a local prison to await execution. His staff, instead of ordering a frontal assault with its potential for casualties, called in Dreben, who quickly shot the door off the stucco jailhouse, freeing his commander. But Sam's heroics were not all fire and bluster. When a fellow officer fell seriously ill with dengue fever, it was Sammy who trekked eight miles through the jungle to bring his comrade a pot of chicken soup.

It was a short campaign. After barely four months of conflict, a compromise treaty was signed in Tegucigalpa. Sammy pocketed his final month's pay of $600 and was out of a job once more. But not for long.

In Mexico the long reign of Porfirio Diaz, the dictator since 1877, was on its last legs, challenged by a democratic movement led by the young lawyer Francisco I. Madero. Inevitably, Madero and Dreben found each other. Before the year 1911 was out, Sam and his machine gun were on Madero's payroll, spearheading a successful drive to Mexico City, where Madero was installed as President.

But Mexico quickly became a textbook case of the corruptibility of power. No sooner was an idealist seated in the presidential palace, than he himself became a tyrant. So before Sammy had finished coating his weapon with Cosmoline and packed it away, the next revolution broke out. And the next and the next one after that. Dreben was so busy fighting for Huerta, Orozco, Carranza, Salazar and Pancho Villa (among others) on their way to the palace, and then fighting against them once they got there, that he took up residence in El Paso, Texas. The first place he called home since he left Russia and an easy commute to whichever revolution was currently playing across the Rio Grande.

His feats with the machine gun were now almost mythic. Dreben would enter a battle with a wheelbarrow or two - a harbinger of mechanized warfare, one might say - and a couple of helpers, then race from flank to flank, his helpers trundling along, pushing the wheelbarrow heaped with ammunition, tripod and gun, ready to set up shop wherever Maestro Dreben directed.

By 1913, it was Pancho Villa's turn to head the next revolution. Sammy believed that Villa, the charismatic, illiterate peasant would finally bring democracy to the Mexican people. Dreben became Villa's purchasing agent in El Paso, smuggling arms across the Rio Grande, helping the cause however he could. The struggle dragged on for years. Defeats and victories ran into one another as Villa rode his white charger from one battle to another. Then Villa made a terrible error. Stung by a few recent defeats, his followers raided Columbus, New Mexico on March 10, 1916, killing seventeen innocent Americans and wounding a score of others. This inexplicable, unprovoked sneak attack, America's first taste of infamy, was as incomprehensible as it was unforgivable. President Woodrow Wilson did not hesitate. He summoned General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing to lead a punitive cavalry expedition against Villa. Pershing didn't hesitate either. Short of scouts for the type campaign he planned, Pershing called for volunteers. Dreben answered the call, never to serve Villa again.

Once at Pershing's side Dreben was often the General's personal chauffeur, at other times a scout, still others a spy. When he was sent out as a squad leader to reconnoiter, his troopers were called Drebeneers. Perhaps it was around the campfire one night that a young lieutenant with the expedition, George S. Patton, heard a few tales of the legendary Dreben.

By mid-February 1917, America's entry into WWI was fast approaching and the chase for Villa had to be broken off. Pershing had more important things ahead of him. So did Sam, now 39 years old and tired of fighting one war or another for the last eighteen years. He decided it was finally time to settle down, marry and have children. In the early spring of 1917, after a whirlwind courtship Sam married Helen Spence, a stunning nineteen-year old, and bought a house in El Paso. By late April, his young wife was expecting.

President Wilson called for volunteers on April 6, 1917, the day Congress declared war on Germany. Sam, now ten years retired from the Army, was torn between his country's needs and obligations to a wife and expected child. For the first time since 1899 Sam did not answer the call. He stayed home. Yet inexplicably, ten months, later on February 12, 1918, less than a month after his daughter was born, Dreben was in the recruitment office of the Texas National Guard putting on an Army uniform for the third and last time. He turned down an offer of a commission to enlist as a First Sergeant with Company A commanded by his friend Captain William F. Burges, an attorney and member of a prominent El Paso family. Company A was eventually assigned to the 141st Infantry, also an El Paso outfit, and shipped "Over There" by mid-summer of 1917.

Once in uniform, Sammy itched for action, but before he saw any, there was devastating news. A letter from his wife finally caught up with him and the first-time father learned that his baby had died while he was en route to France. Whether Dreben could have done anything about getting back to his wife in Texas, we will never know. What we do know is that there is no record of his asking for a hardship discharge. Apparently, duty to his adopted country won out over all else. Thus began Samuel Dreben's short but remarkable tour of duty in the war to end all wars.

In early October 1918, the advance of the American and French armies was stalemated at St. Etienne. One nest of four German machine guns was raising particular hell. Sam knew those guns had to be put out of action. According to the official citation describing Dreben's heroism, "He discovered a party of German troops going to the support of a machine gun nest situated in a pocket near where the French and American lines joined. He called for volunteers and with the aid of about 30 men rushed the German positions, captured four machine guns, killed 40 of the enemy, captured two and returned to our lines without the loss of a man." For this action Sgt. Dreben was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, with the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire added by the French (their highest honor). Later the Italian and Belgian governments decorated him similarly.

As singular as this honor was, what happened next far surpasses any such decoration. The event unfolded on a rainy day when the lead column of his regiment arrived at the post that marked the boundary between France and Alsace. At last they were to set foot on German soil. The officer in command of the regiment halted the column and ordered up the band. The bandsmen drew up beside the muddy road. An order echoed down the line: "Sergeant Dreben, front and center!" Through the mud the muffled little sergeant came plodding, wondering what it was all about. "Sergeant Dreben, we are entering German territory. You've earned the right to set the first foot on enemy soil. Take the point." Then the regimental band (inexplicably) struck up, "My Old Kentucky Home", as Sam marched across the line and onto the scroll of history.

When the armistice followed shortly thereafter, General Pershing personally granted Sergeant Dreben leave in Paris. No doubt Sammy could have asked for an early discharge, which almost certainly would have been granted, but again, he did not. Was Sammy ashamed to go home to Texas and face his wife? Was he drowning his guilt in the excesses of Paris? For whatever reason, Samuel Dreben, husband and father-in-mourning, stuck with the army until April 17, 1919, when he was honorably discharged for the third and final time. But his last battle was still to be fought.

General Pershing, back seat, left, with staff officials in his command car; a rented Dodge Touring sedan. (see below)