![]() ![]() It has come down to a sort of official line in today’s Marine Corps that Dan Daly and Smedley Butler both earned two Medals of Honor. What from this period or the legacy of Butler resonates in the Marine Corps today? I was really trying to go deep into these chains of memory, the way that history is contested and handed down and the work these memories do in some places and not others. ![]() At no point am I saying one memory is more accurate. I wanted to know, at every point along the way, the thoughts of the enlisted, officers, politicians, Americans and locals. I really wanted to find the ways in which these moments, these wars, interventions, invasions and occupations are remembered in the country where they happened. Things that are remembered or forgotten and the active process of suppression or omission. You took the time to travel to the locations of most of the major battles and wars and interview people living there today. He’s a prolific letter writer and his family saves the letters. What makes Butler unique is not just that he’s everywhere - because a lot of his comrades were everywhere - it’s that he has so much to say about it. Marines were everywhere during this period - Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, China, the Philippines. ![]() Based on research, it appears one in three Marines at the time passed through Veracruz, Mexico. Until that point it had been mostly a naval infantry - guarding ships, guarding ports - but through these wars many Marines get their first taste of combat. This is an inflection point in Marine Corps history. Why is this period important for the Marine Corps and its relationship to U.S. He’s not alone in his acts there were other American officers in Nicaragua and it was very obvious to everybody involved what was going on and who was calling the shots. He continues, and in many ways, many of his most egregious acts he commits are as a Marine.īut it’s in these personal letters you start seeing a little more awareness of what’s going on. this doesn’t keep him from doing anything. He’s having conversations with wealthy Nicaraguan elites, who are very open about wanting Americans to do certain things that will give their families an advantage. While in Nicaragua, Butler starts portraying the situation in letters back home to his parents. What evidence did you find in your research that reflects some of these realizations? Katz started researching his 2022 book, "Gangsters of Capitalism" after learning some of the history of U.S. ![]() Eisenhower, who warned the nation in 1961 of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex,” echoing the concerns Butler had penned approximately 25 years earlier.Īuthor Jonathan M. That book presaged the final message, decades later, of President Dwight D. He published a slim volume, the renowned “War is a Racket,” which outlined how corporate interests married to military might spell doom for the American dream of a free globe. Roosevelt’s Depression-busting “New Deal,” forced Butler to speak out. What became known as “The Business Plot,” a scheme by industrialists threatened by then-President Franklin D. Some of those very corporate leaders would later approach Butler in retirement, seeking his leadership in a coup - this time not in some shaky backwater, but in the United States. Over the course of his career, Butler would receive two Medals of Honor, first for his actions in Veracruz, Mexico, and later for fighting in Haiti.īut the starry-eyed optimism of “Old Gimlet Eye” dwindled as he began to recognize corporate interests intertwined with the fighting and the dying of his Marines. ![]()
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