A Soldier Worthy of Salute and Memory

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/30/memorial-day-salute-to-a-repentant-ex-marine/

The article cites the new book – Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, The Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire by Jonathan Katz (St. Martin's Press 2022).

This is a book that I want to read. Butler is a fascinating character and one soldier that I too would salute. He was a true hero, not for his soldiering but for his courage and willingness to tell the truth about it – something that actually took more courage and exacted a heavier price than all his battlefield exploits.

Generally speaking I do not respect soldiers but as a Christian I do respect repentant ones and will happily hear them and their testimony. Butler was highly decorated and how painful it must have been for the Establishment to hear this man denounce their deeds and agenda in such a sweeping, bold, and unabashed fashion.

Butler later revealed the Business Plot, the attempt to overthrow the incoming Roosevelt administration. Many believe it was a hoax and all of the accused denied its existence. Maybe so, but what would you expect? One of the problems was Butler turned to the government and some of the guardians of the hen-house turned out to be foxes. The same has proven true over and over again from Iran-Contra to January 6^th.

Butler feared the rise of fascism in the United States and it outraged many that such a highly decorated and high ranking soldier would speak to pacifist groups and allow his writing to appear in Socialist publications. And can you even imagine today a man like Butler publically referring to US soldiers and their operations as 'gangsterism'

He lived in a different time but the same forces are at work and the lessons are just as pertinent for our own day.

The world reveres men like MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton who all played a part in crushing The Bonus Army in 1932. Butler the old veteran opposed them and stood with the bonus marchers. The only soldiers Christians should be interested in are men like Butler – whistleblowers, willing to expose their own evil deeds for the sake of the truth.