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To: dixiepatriot
Listen to a retired Marine general, twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, on the subject.

Number One: It's Medal of Honor RECIPIENT

Number Two: If in fact Smedley Butler said this, I doubt he meant it the way that the author has twisted it.

There have been 7 Marine Corps double recipients of the MOH, however Smedley Butler and Daniel Daly were the only ones who received it for separate actions.

28 posted on 02/04/2004 6:35:53 AM PST by CholeraJoe (Air Force! We're the smart ones, we send the officers out to fight.)
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To: CholeraJoe; dixiepatriot
The author exposes himself as a full on tool.

and Hitler himself made no secret that he thought the new world order should consist of Germany, England, and the United States

And what makes that Statement credible, when considered in light of his protestations of Lebensraum/Czechoslovakia ?????

Or....Maybe his maps were just really bad, and he thought that the Sudetenland really stretched from the south of France, to the Sea of Japan....By way of Poland...

34 posted on 02/04/2004 6:44:21 AM PST by hobbes1 (Hobbes1TheOmniscient® "I know everything so you don't have to" ;)
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To: CholeraJoe
Smedley Butler said "war is a racket". He said that every action he was ever involved in was not in the defense of American freedom but for the profits of wall street and bankers.

P.S. Butler also was breveted to captain for action in China before officers were eligible for the CMH. So technically he could be considered a 3 time recipient.

55 posted on 02/04/2004 7:37:31 AM PST by u-89
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To: CholeraJoe
Many of Butler's intemperate remarks made after his retirement are related to his fury at being derailed from becoming Commandant of the Marine Corps. Born to wealth and power as the son of a very senior Republican member of the Penn. House delegation and a prominent Philadelphia Mainline family Butler from the time he was commissioned made few bones of the fact that his eventual goal was to be the CMC.

In the course of a career marked by numerous acts of heroism and distinguished conduct Butler also displayed a an egotistic streak a mile wide and a talent for intrigue and back stabbing second to none. In spite of his often stated admiration for the rank and file Marine he displayed a willingness to use those underhim in the most callous way to satisfy his ambition or whims. The erection of the (then) professional class football stadium at Quantico MB was a case in point that went far to sink Butler's ambitions to be CMC.

From his academy days Butler was a foootball fanatic. As the cult of football bloomed into a national craze in the 1920's he saw creating a Marine Corps team capable of competing with the best college teams would be valuable publicity for both the Corps , and more importantly, for the creator of such an institution. Smedley Butler was determined he would be that individual by virtue of his position of Commander MCB Quantico.

To showcase his football team Butler reasoned he needed a football stadium worthy of hosting the best in college teams. The problem was that in the cash strapped (for the armed services) interwar era money was not available to build such a facility. This especially was true since by the time Butler came to direct building the stadium the Great Depression had begun and service budgets were better described as starvation rather than austere. Butler's way around this problem was to turn the garrison at Quantico into a huge labor detail working six and sometimes seven days a week on 12 hour days to build the stadium. Funds for materials were obtained by virtually shutting down base operations and using the operations and maintenance funds to purchase construction materials.

In a year or so the combination of soaring unauthorized absentee/desertin rates at Quantico (and this was in the Depresion when those in the services desperately held on to thier positions at all cost) and the complaints by the fiscal and base operations staff made back channel to HQ USMC brought enough high level heat down onto Smedley that his career which heretofore had soared came to a crashing end. There were plenty of senior officers who had endured his ruthlessness and hammy egotism for years and now they were happy to see him slip.

Butler in retirement became a very angry man much of whose venom which with ghost writers such as Lowell Thomas' assistance regularly appeared in national magazines was directed at the armed forces in general and the Naval services in particular. Smedley Butler is definitely one hero with a real dark side.
89 posted on 02/04/2004 9:04:11 AM PST by robowombat
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