bob cummings. david: bob cummings. my mother's oldest brother.nd he was radicalized at the university of michigan. and the day he graduated in 1937, he and two of his friends, ralph and another, left michigan, went to new york, got on a boat, took the boat across to france, took a train across france, to the spanish border, climbed over the pyrenees to fight against franco in the spanish civil war. brian: what was motivating him? david: ideology, politics. hatred of fascism. most of the americans and canadiens who went over there had some, or 2/3 of them had some affiliation with the young communist league. so you can say, you know, that that was financially what -- they didn't make money off of this, of course, but that's how they got there. but what was driving them was a belief in a better egalitarian world and a hatred of fascism. brian lamb: what happened to him after that? david: he was there from 1937 until the americans were sent home, a little bit before the war ended with franco defeating the loyalists, the republicans. and he came back