The author gives a balanced view of what people thought of Smedley. During the 1930's he highlighted the impact on veterans of what would later be called PTSD. He himself lost weight, suffered a breakdown and was hospitalised several times as well as being shot in the thigh in China. All required a daily rigour supplied by an unstinting Smedley Butler. The practical side of soldiering is well-described - the health toll of tropical heat and fever, booze and STD's logistics, railway repairs, road-building maintaining discipline, fitness and morale in peace and war. The Boxer Rebellion, Philippines and Haiti produced his greatest battlefield challenges and he secured promotions and decorations because he performed well in the field. He saw no action in Cuba or in WWI France. He faced no modern army in combat during his career. Mainly because his enemies were weak in comparison. War was a practical affair and he was an energetic, brave and resourceful leader of men and good organiser who achieved success with limited resources. Geopolitics, Realpolitik and the facts of Great Power rivalry seem to have been matters above his pay grade. No Staff College or studying the great texts of military history for him. Given command at such a young age and receiving no formal education thereafter, Smedley relied completely on his first-hand combat experience to shape his world view.
He barely finished school when he ran off to fight in the Spanish-American War and became an officer by the time he was 19. Butler's career encompassed Imperialism, Prohibition, Gangsterism, Political Corruption, Isolationism, American Big Business to name just the most obvious.īutler became Action Man at a time when the military and many other aspects of life were becoming increasingly professionalised - a development he met with disdain.
This topic is a vast one because it is more than the story of one man. The changing sociology of both the military and police is used to show how and why Smedley did or did not fit in with the different milieux he inhabited over a long and varied career, one that continued after his formal retirement from the Marine Corps in 1931. The writing style is rather dense with much analysis thrown in amongst the narrative and biographical detail. Schmidt is successful in showing the essential truth that Smedley Butler was sui generis - one of a kind. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice.
We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
0 kommentar(er)
