Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Was Smedley Butler representative of a radical trend in Depression-era Marines?

Were the radical left views of General Smedley “War is a Racket” Butler more widespread in the Marine Corps than we remember? I ask because I was reading a history of the 1932 Bonus March on Washington by disgruntled World War I vets, and was surprised to see that the Army didn’t want the Marines ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Wikimedia

Were the radical left views of General Smedley "War is a Racket" Butler more widespread in the Marine Corps than we remember?

Were the radical left views of General Smedley “War is a RacketButler more widespread in the Marine Corps than we remember?

I ask because I was reading a history of the 1932 Bonus March on Washington by disgruntled World War I vets, and was surprised to see that the Army didn’t want the Marines at the barracks and 8th and I SW in D.C. called out to help, supposedly out of fear that some of them “would side with the revolutionaries.” (p. 143)

You know, typical left-wing jarheads.

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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