16. An Original Antifa, This Hero Wanted to Fight Fascists Since He Was a Teenager
WWII hero William Egan Colby (1920 – 1996) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of a US Army officer. Although Colby’s father was a career soldier, his pursuits focused more on the intellectual and scholarly contributions to the military, rather than on the strictly military. While serving in the Army, Colby’s father was also an author and scholar who did stints as an English professor in Vermont, Georgia, Washington, DC, and overseas in far-off China.
That mobile childhood left its mark on William Colby. It broadened his horizons, and gave him an interest in world affairs and a thirst for adventure. In 1936, at age 16, he seriously considered fighting in the Spanish Civil War with the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, against General Francisco Franco’s fascists. Instead, he ended up accepting a scholarship to study at Princeton University. After graduating with a political science degree, he went to Columbia Law School in 1940. Colby dropped out of law school after his first year to join the US Army, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in August 1941.