Veterans Day Memories and Medals

On Veterans Day we honor all of the men and women who have served in our military forces. Our military, in turn, honors those people who have performed some particularly heroic or meritorious task by awarding medals to them.  

The highest award that is given by the military is called the Medal of Honor, and is generally presented by the President of the United States. One of the country’s most decorated veterans is a man born in West Chester, known as the Fighting Quaker, who was awarded two Medals of Honor.  

Smedley Darlington Butler was born in 1881 to descendants of old Quaker families from Chester County. His father was a powerful congressman. Butler attended Haverford School, was captain of the baseball team and quarterback of the football team, but left school 38 days before his 17th birthday, and against his father's wishes, to enlist in the Marine Corps and go off to serve in the Spanish–American War. He had a 34-year career with the Marines, and during that time, according to the Military Times Hall of Valor:

"Smedley Butler is one of TWO Marines who received TWO Medals of Honor for SEPARATE actions, Vera Cruz, Mexico and Haiti. With his award of the Marine Corps Brevet Medal in the Boxer Rebellion, an award considered on par with the Medal of Honor, he could technically be called the only TRIPLE recipient of the Medal of Honor. During World War I he was awarded both the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals."

He later served as Director of Public Safety for the city of Philadelphia, making waves by arresting bootleggers and closing speakeasies during Prohibition rather than winking at them. He ruffled powerful feathers by raiding not just the watering holes of the lower classes, but also the Ritz-Carlton and the Union League, the watering holes of the rich and powerful.

After being passed over for promotion in 1930, he retired from the Marine Corps but continued to have a public career. He ran for the Senate in 1932, and lost. In 1934, he claimed that a group of wealthy industrialists had asked him to lead a coup to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt's presidency.  

He authored a 1935 book, War is a Racket, in which he described the workings of the military-industrial complex. He did speaking tours warning about military adventures in foreign lands for insufficient reasons saying, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”  He fearlessly spoke his mind about the problems faced by the country. 

In retirement, he lived in a house on Goshen Road in Newtown Square filled with his awards and artifacts from his travels around the world. He died in 1940, and is buried in Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester. His house still stands in Newtown Square, and is still owned by his descendants. 

All of the Medal of Honor winners are remembered in the Medal of Honor Grove at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge. Here is their description of their site:

"The Grove contains 52 acres of natural woodland and is designed as a living memorial to the 3458 recipients of our nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor.  A section of the Grove is designated for each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.  The Ancient Order of Hibernians erected a 53rd monument dedicated to the more than 150 Recipients of the MOH who had no home state.  Most of these men, if not all, joined our military as immigrants from other countries.  Each state area has a 7’x7” obelisk centered on a 25 foot square brick plaza.  Each Medal of Honor Recipient is identified by a stainless steel marker with the name and organization of each recipient and the date and location of the act of valor.  Each marker is mounted beside a living tree, where possible."

Visit the website here for more details.  

And the next time you are in Valley Forge, make it a point to stop in and pay your respects. Let’s remember and honor these veterans, and all veterans, each day of the year. And we can hope that in remembering genuine heroes like Butler and the other veterans, perhaps we can stiffen the spines of our political leaders to provide leadership that is worthy of the sacrifice of these men and women who have served selflessly, fearlessly and with courage and honor.