Smedley Darlington Butler

He stormed a fortress, later challenged the business of war.

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler earned two Medals of Honor before becoming one of America’s most outspoken critics of military intervention and war profiteering. Known to Marines as “Old Gimlet Eye,” he served for thirty-three years, leading men through campaigns in Asia, Mexico and the Caribbean. His later book, War Is a Racket, challenged the financial interests he believed had benefited from those interventions. (usmcu.edu, gutenbergca.gutenbergcanada.ca)

Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on 30 July 1881, Butler was the son of Congressman Thomas S. Butler. He entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in May 1898, aged sixteen, during the Spanish-American War. Service in the Philippines and China followed. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, he was wounded near Tientsin, establishing an early reputation for courage under fire. His subsequent assignments took him through the expanding network of American military interventions overseas. (usmcu.edu, history.navy.mil)

Butler received his first Medal of Honor for the fighting at Veracruz, Mexico, on 22 April 1914. Commanding a Marine battalion, he led his men through the battle and occupation of the city. His citation recognized both his personal courage and his skill in command. (cmohs.org)

His second Medal of Honor followed the assault on Fort Riviere, Haiti, on 17 November 1915. Butler commanded detachments of Marines and sailors closing around the old French fort. At a small opening in its southern wall, he gave the signal to attack. Marines forced their way through the breach and overcame the defenders in close combat. Butler’s leadership during this separate action placed him among the small group of Americans twice awarded the nation’s highest military decoration. (cmohs.org)

During the First World War, Butler served in France, where his responsibilities included command of Camp Pontanezen near Brest, a vast centre for processing American troops. After the war, he commanded at Quantico and helped develop Marine Corps education and training. He also served in China before retiring as a major general on 1 October 1931. (usmcu.edu, usmcu.edu, veterantributes.org)

Retirement brought a striking change in his public role. Butler spoke against overseas intervention and argued that soldiers and civilians bore the human and financial costs of wars from which private interests could profit. In 1934, he testified before a House of Representatives committee about approaches he said had been made to recruit him into a movement against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The allegations became known as the Business Plot; the inquiry ended without criminal charges. (lawcat.berkeley.edu, usmcu.edu)

Published in 1935, War Is a Racket distilled his criticism into a forceful argument drawn from his own military experience. Butler died at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital on 21 June 1940, aged fifty-eight, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery, West Chester. His life connects two enduring identities: a Marine commander twice decorated for bravery and a veteran determined to question the purposes for which military power was used. (gutenbergca.gutenbergcanada.ca, usmcu.edu, cmohs.org)