Taken from Smedley Darlington Butler: From Consummate Imperialist to Strident Anti-Imperialist by W. D. Ehrhart:
A recently published book, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire by Jonathan Katz, is finally bringing much-needed mainstream attention to one of the most fascinating Americans of the 20th century.
My connection to Butler goes back to the summer of 1966 when I arrived at US Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, at the age of 17. We learned all sorts of things that summer, but one thing we learned was the names of the two Marines who had each won not one, but two Medals of Honor: Dan Daly and Smedley Butler.
Butler would have received three Medals of Honor if the award had been available to officers during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 China. Every enlisted man on a patrol he led as a teenage lieutenant received one, but he was instead awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, the highest decoration for bravery then available to commissioned officers.... Read More
