Samuel Drebin, sometimes misspelled "Drebben" or "Dreben", and known as "The Fighting Jew", was a highly decorated soldier in the US Army and a mercenary who fought in a variety of wars and revolutions.
Early life
He was born in Poltava, Russia. With prospects for a Jew in Czarist Russia exceedingly bleak, he ran away twice, before emigrating for good at the age of eighteen. He went first to Liverpool, where he worked as a dock hand, then to America, arriving in New York City in January 1899.
Military career
Drebin enlisted on June 27, 1899 in the 14th Infantry Regiment and was shipped to the Philippines to help put down a native insurrection led by Emilio Aguinaldo. He quickly distinguished himself in battle. Later, he participated in the rescue of westerners besieged in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. Mustered out in 1902, he took a succession of unsatisfactory jobs, including an attempt to fight for the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War, before reenlisting in 1904. This time, he was stationed at Fort Bliss. It was here that he was trained how to use a machine gun, a skill for which he became well-known. He made friends in nearby El Paso, Texas before his second army hitch ended in 1907. Together with two other soldiers of fortune and machine gun experts, Tracy Richardson and Emil Lewis Holmdahl, Drebin's wanderings then took him to Central America. He worked as a security guard in the Panama Canal Zone. After several unsuccessful business ventures, he was recruited to fight for various liberation movements in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico. It was in Guatemala that he suffered his only combat wound – a shot in the rear. In the Mexican Revolution, Drebin joined the forces of Francisco Madero as a machine gunner. After Madero's murder in 1913, Drebin worked for Felix A. Sommerfeld in El Paso, smuggled arms to Pancho Villa's forces, and went on sabotage missions in Mexico for Sommerfeld's secret service. When the latter made his infamous raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916, killing some civilians, Drebin joined the Punitive Expedition sent by an outraged America to bring his former comrade-in-arms to justice. Drebin served as a scout and became good friends with the expedition's commander, General John Pershing. The Americans were never able to catch the elusive Villa, and the fiasco eventually came to an end in 1917. In early 1917, Drebin married 19-year-old Helen Spence. They soon had a baby daughter. However, America's entry into World War I eventually lured him back into the Army, enlisting in the 141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division. En route to the fighting in France, he received word that his child had died. Drebin once again distinguished himself in combat. For his bravery at St. Etienne in October 1918, Sergeant Dreben was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Croix de guerre and the Médaille militaire, the highest French honor. General Pershing, now commander of the American Expeditionary Force, called him "the finest soldier and one of the bravest men I ever know."
Post-war life
After the end of the war, Drebin returned to El Paso, where he divorced his wife because of her infidelity in his absence. The war hero then settled down and started a successful insurance business. In 1921, Drebin received another honor; he was selected by General Pershing to be one of the honorary pallbearers for the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11. In the same year, Drebin and some others were recruited by El Paso police to illegally extradite an escaped prisoner, Phil Alguin, who had murdered Los Angeles Police Detective Sergeant John J. Fitzgerald. The men set up a false medical office in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico advertising the removal of tattoos. The plan was that when Alguin came in for treatment, they would apply anesthetic, then drive him to El Paso. However, Alguin was not rendered fully unconscious and was able to cry for help. Drebin and the others were arrested, but were released from prison after three days due to pressure from the United States. In 1923, he married for the second time, this time to Meade Andrews. She convinced him to move to California for a fresh start. On March 15, 1925, Drebin died when a nurse accidentally injected him with the wrong substance. Newspapers all over the country, including the New York Times and the El Paso Times, paid tribute to him. Famed columnist Damon Runyon wrote a eulogy, and the Texas legislature adjourned for a day in his honor. He is buried in Glendale, California's Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery.
Additional information
Art Leibson, Sam Dreben: The Fighting Jew, Tucson, Arizona : Westernlore Press, 1996
