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thedrifter
11-10-04, 07:24 AM
Looking fondly on three decades
Published Tue, Nov 9, 2004

By MICHAEL KERR
Gazette staff writer
Maxwell Butler had every intention of joining the Navy.
His family was filled with Navy men, and it had been a lifelong dream of his to follow in their footsteps.

But when he and a buddy traveled from their homes in Pensacola, Fla., to New Orleans in the autumn of 1939 to enlist, they found the Navy recruiting office closed.

"The Marine Corps recruiting office was right next door and had a big sign hanging in the window that said, 'We need 700 men in San Diego,'" Butler said. "We was on the train that night headed for San Diego."

Sixty-five years later, things have worked out just fine.

Butler, 84, served in the Marine Corps for 30 years, retiring in 1970 as a sergeant major.

He fought in the Pacific during World War II and then in both Korea and Vietnam before his retirement brought him back to Port Royal, just a few miles from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, where he had been stationed three times during his career.

He was on Midway Island near Honolulu when Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1942, and was still there in June 1945 for during the Battle of Midway.

"We got hit pretty hard," Butler said. "The Japanese really wanted it. They tried to take it ... They came after the island, but they didn't take it. The Navy stopped them. They never made it ashore."

From Midway, Butler went to Australia and, a few stops later, to Okinawa for a battle he called "the last big one" before the war ended.

"I could have went to Japan (after the war) but I had been over there 52 months and I decided I'd rather come home, so I came home," Butler said. "If it hadn't ended, we'd have hit Japan. We was glad it was over. We'd have went from Okinawa to Japan."

After the war, Butler got out of the Marine Corps, but civilian life didn't stick. Nine months later, after deciding military life was his best option, Butler was a Marine again.

"I was still a youngster and I didn't find myself," he said. "I decided I'd better go back in and make a career out of it, so I did."

Butler re-enlisted in 1946 and was stationed for the first time at Parris Island. It was then he met and married his wife, Yvonne, now a Port Royal Town Councilwoman, who was already acquainted with the Corps.

"It just so happened my father was a Marine," Yvonne Butler said. "I was raised in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has always meant a lot to me."

Used to her father having to pick up and move when duty called, Yvonne said she had no problem moving when the Marine Corps said so.

"You just accept these things and really try to enjoy it for his sake, and your sake, and the children's sake," she said. "We moved so many places, and I really enjoyed it. It's all where your find home and happiness. We were happy."

Thirty-four years after her husband's retirement, Yvonne said she can still see the love Maxwell Butler has for his Corps.

"The Marine Corps was everything to him," she said. "Even when he was getting ready to retire, he was ready to ask if he could stay longer. We did want to stay a while longer."

And even though Maxwell Butler's intentions were to join the Navy on Nov. 8, 1939, the retired sergeant major said he wouldn't change a thing, even if he could.

"I'd do the same thing over again," he said, relaxing in a recliner in his Smilax Avenue home. "It was a good job, and I had fun."

http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/NWS-butler-110904.jpg

Megan Lovett/Gazette
Maxwell Butler, 84, served the Marine Corps through World War II, the Korean War, and eventually as a gunnery sergeant on Parris Island.

http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local_news/military/story/4165066p-3936788c.html


Ellie