10thzodiac
09-01-06, 09:32 PM
:usmc: "Never in a million years," MacArthur replied emphatically. "There's only one Butler. He was one of the really great generals in American history."
It is as a great "leatherneck" that Gen. Smedley D. Butler will be remembered. He was an admirable officer, as tough in his speech as in the fiber of his body and soul. He came of Quaker ancestry, but no Quaker more dearly loved to be belligerent. . . . Because he was utterly unafraid, brave and unselfish, he earned the characterization of being the ideal American soldier, and, to use the words of an official citation of the Navy Department, of being "one of the most brilliant officers in the United States."
The New York Times now hailed him as "one of the most glamorous and gallant men who ever wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps.... a brave man and an able leader of troops.... He laughed at danger, and he set an example to his men that helped them to carry out the traditions of the Marine Corps." Calling him also "often a storm center," the Times added, "It was when he ventured into public affairs that his impetuosity led him into trouble."
Although Butler may have been the first high-ranking Marine Corps general to challenge establishment policies, he was not the last. Significantly, as early as January, 1966, another distinguished Marine general, former Commandant David M. Shoup, went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to warn the American people that President Lyndon B. Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam was a tragic mistake.
It might also be noted that before the explosion of the Pentagon Papers, two Marine Corps colonels wrote books denouncing the intervention in Vietnam as genocide against a people caught up in a civil war, in support of a corrupt Saigon dictatorship.
When the war that Smedley Butler had dreaded and sought to prevent came to his country out of the clouds over Pearl Harbor, eighteen months after his death, an American destroyer was named the U.S.S. Butler in his honor. Converted to a high-speed minesweeper, it saw distinguished service during the war.
That would not have seemed inappropriate to the fighting hero who hated war as a racket, yet who had once declared, "I am a peace-loving Quaker, but when war breaks out every damn man in my family goes." Both his sons entered the service, Smedley, Jr. in the Marines, Tom Dick in the Navy.:usmc: http://www.clubhousewreckards.com/plot/ptstwh4fallout.htm
It is as a great "leatherneck" that Gen. Smedley D. Butler will be remembered. He was an admirable officer, as tough in his speech as in the fiber of his body and soul. He came of Quaker ancestry, but no Quaker more dearly loved to be belligerent. . . . Because he was utterly unafraid, brave and unselfish, he earned the characterization of being the ideal American soldier, and, to use the words of an official citation of the Navy Department, of being "one of the most brilliant officers in the United States."
The New York Times now hailed him as "one of the most glamorous and gallant men who ever wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps.... a brave man and an able leader of troops.... He laughed at danger, and he set an example to his men that helped them to carry out the traditions of the Marine Corps." Calling him also "often a storm center," the Times added, "It was when he ventured into public affairs that his impetuosity led him into trouble."
Although Butler may have been the first high-ranking Marine Corps general to challenge establishment policies, he was not the last. Significantly, as early as January, 1966, another distinguished Marine general, former Commandant David M. Shoup, went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to warn the American people that President Lyndon B. Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam was a tragic mistake.
It might also be noted that before the explosion of the Pentagon Papers, two Marine Corps colonels wrote books denouncing the intervention in Vietnam as genocide against a people caught up in a civil war, in support of a corrupt Saigon dictatorship.
When the war that Smedley Butler had dreaded and sought to prevent came to his country out of the clouds over Pearl Harbor, eighteen months after his death, an American destroyer was named the U.S.S. Butler in his honor. Converted to a high-speed minesweeper, it saw distinguished service during the war.
That would not have seemed inappropriate to the fighting hero who hated war as a racket, yet who had once declared, "I am a peace-loving Quaker, but when war breaks out every damn man in my family goes." Both his sons entered the service, Smedley, Jr. in the Marines, Tom Dick in the Navy.:usmc: http://www.clubhousewreckards.com/plot/ptstwh4fallout.htm