At 26, life has barely begun. Only a long road ahead is visible. What work, what legacy is left in the first two decades of existence? It is not a kind of common destiny for those who have transcended, almost beardless, by dedicating themselves to others. Then, those whose light shines brightly, so young and lucid, seem—and do—to chart the collective course.
Offering one's life for others, for the good of others, is one of those decisions that charts a course, that illuminates the darkness of humanity. This is how Cuban cities and towns remember a young man who, having come from Brooklyn, USA, at the age of 19, found no room for fear: in the harshness of our countryside, he wove his dreams; in the battles to liberate Cuba, he forged his character.
He did not fear the colonial yoke. For seven years, he shared land, food, and struggle with barefoot Creoles, machetes in hand. Death approached him and then receded, like one who respects, for his greatness, the adversary.
The young American mambí who survived a firing squad, who participated in the legendary rescue of Brigadier Julio Sanguily, who earned, through sheer courage, the rank of Brigadier General and the admiration of Máximo Gómez and Ignacio Agramonte, is not a stranger or a foreigner; he is a legend as much a part of us as his victories in the Cuban War of Independence.
He stands tall in the memory of the Cuban countryside, the one who made light of his shadows. The one who, after being injured in his right leg during combat, adapted a prosthesis and designed a system of straps and springs to secure himself to his horse. He reinvented himself to avoid abandoning the struggle that had brought him to a land far from his birthplace, because he was not indifferent to the persistent slavery and the still-unfulfilled sovereignty.
Henry Reeve—"The Little Englishman," as he was nicknamed in these lands, also his own, for his bravery—chose to take his own life with a shot to the temple on August 4, 1876, rather than surrender alive to the Spanish army. In Yaguaramas, a small town in Villa Clara province, he chose the immortality that only honor offers over a life cut short by cowardice. He was 26 years old.
Solidarity, which we Cubans know and practice well, operates in such quixotic ways, both in giving and receiving it. Knowing this, Fidel had no qualms about choosing the name of this mambí to name the International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics, "an organization that to this day has no precedent in the world," he affirmed in 2005, and the more than 50 countries where it has served in these 20 years bear witness to this.
Regarding its creation, the Commander himself recounted that on the evening of September 12th, an information note was delivered to the Granma newspaper announcing the formation of the contingent on the 19th. The brigade's first mission—"to support the people of the United States as soon as Katrina struck the southern part of that country with all its brutality"—was rejected by the U.S. government. However, the impulse of solidarity had already been born. And making history in other lands as if they were their own—like El Inglesito—would be the path to follow.
"Its objective will not only be to support a specific nation, but to cooperate immediately, with its specially trained personnel, with any country that suffers a similar catastrophe, especially those facing major hurricanes, floods, or other natural phenomena of that magnitude," the leader said at the time.
Having treated over eight million people and saved more than 166,000 lives worldwide, the Henry Reeve Brigade makes no excuses when it comes to providing medical care wherever it is needed. Its legacy is easily recognizable: it belongs to those men and women who, bold and fearless, face death head-on and extend a helping hand to a friend.
