Category: Manly Stuff
Well I don’t know about you but I thought that this was Uber Cool in my book! (Yeah I have always wanted a log cabin to live in but I kind of doubt it is going to happen) Grumpy
78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot (The Ross-shire Buffs): Raised in Scotland in 1793 by Francis Humberston Mackenzie. It fought in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Second Maratha War (Battle of Assaye), the Napoleonic Wars, the Anglo-Persian War, and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (earning in that fight 8 Victoria Crosses).
It was amalgamated with the 72nd Seaforth (Highland) Regiment in 1881 to form the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders.
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BEAR attacks russian man…
And if it was me, I would afterwards then taken a shower as I would of sh*tted my pants! Grumpy
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A Victory! COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Good News for a change! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! Interesting stuff Leadership of the highest kind Manly Stuff One Hell of a Good Fight Our Great Kids Real men Soldiering Stand & Deliver This great Nation & Its People War
Smedley Butler: The Marine Who Earned Two Medals of Honor by Will Dabbs
Major General Smedley Butler collected two Medals of Honor, fought across the globe, battled corruption at home, and later claimed powerful businessmen wanted him at the center of an American coup.
Before Smedley Butler, Let’s Talk About Names
My name is Willis. I might have preferred William, but I didn’t pick it. Mine is a family name. As such things go, it certainly could be worse.
Many famous individuals, particularly actors, often choose a new name if their original names seem insufficiently photogenic. John Wayne entered the world as Marion Robert Morrison. Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach. Michael Caine was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Charlie Sheen was Carlos Irwin Estevez. Comedian Jonah Hill was originally Jonah Feldstein. Vin Diesel began life as Mark Sinclair. Diesel changed his name at age seventeen when he became a professional bouncer at a fashionable New York nightclub.
There are countless examples. Famed British actress Helen Mirren was originally Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov. Olivia Wilde was Olivia Jane Cockburn before she became enamored with the playwright Oscar Wilde. Natalie Portman was Natalie Hershlag, but changed her name in a failed effort at protecting her privacy.
Caryn Elaine Johnson had such a problem with passing gas that her coworkers called her “Whoopi Cushion.” When her show business career began to take off, she adopted Whoopi Goldberg because somebody told her that folks with Jewish-sounding names did better in Hollywood. Apparently, it worked. She’s worth $60 million today.
The point is simply that some names can make surviving Second Grade pretty tough. Despite having been saddled with an objectively awkward moniker, Smedley Darlington Butler went on to do some pretty amazing things.
Butler was one of only two Marines in American history to have been awarded the Medal of Honor twice for two different combat engagements. In 1933, he was also tagged to lead a military coup to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. That effort kind of fizzled, but Smedley Butler was nonetheless a simply fascinating guy.
Smedley Butler Before the Legend: A Quaker Goes to War
Smedley Butler was born on 30 July 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the oldest of three sons born to Quaker parents. Butler was an accomplished athlete in High School, serving as captain of his baseball team and quarterback on the gridiron.
He quit school 38 days before his 17th birthday to enlist in the US Marine Corps. His dad was livid, but the young man was terrified he might miss the Spanish-American War. The administrators at his High School had mercy on him and granted him a diploma anyway.
Smedley’s dad served in the US House of Representatives for 31 years. He was chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Having your dad managing the Marine Corps budget likely didn’t hurt the young Jarhead’s career prospects.
The younger Butler lied about his age and was granted a direct commission as a Marine officer. He arrived in Cuba just after the war ended. Butler piddled about the Marine Corps for another year but then mustered out. However, with the Philippine-American War now heating up, the young officer turned around and donned his uniform yet again, this time as a First Lieutenant.
From the Philippines to the Boxer Rebellion
Like many true warriors, Smedley Butler did not handle boredom well. When not in action, he drank excessively. He once got drunk and was relieved of command.
However, in October of 1899, Butler led 300 Marines to seize the town of Noveleta in the Philippines. Though he briefly panicked when his First Sergeant was hit, Butler regained his composure and led his Marines to rout the enemy. Once the carnage abated in the Philippines, Butler headed to China to put down the Boxer Rebellion.
During the Battle of Tientsin in the summer of 1900, Lieutenant Butler was shot through the thigh while rescuing a wounded Marine. Despite the grievous nature of his injury, Butler went on to help evacuate several of his troops under fire.
Four enlisted Marines earned the Medal of Honor in this engagement, but Marine officers were, at that time, not eligible for the award. However, Butler was granted the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, which also included a promotion to Captain. He was one of only twenty Marines in the history of the Corps to be so recognized.
Old Gimlet Eye and the Bloody Banana Wars
Having now tasted proper combat, Captain Butler just couldn’t get enough. He fought across Central America and the Caribbean in what has since come to be called the Banana Wars.
Even though Butler and his Marines were protecting American business interests, they still no doubt faced some profoundly fierce combat. Losing Marines in support of the United Fruit Company and similar corporate concerns made a deep and lasting impression.
In 1903, Butler took a detachment of Marines into Trujillo, Honduras, looking for trouble. Their primary mission was to secure the American consulate there. In a subsequent letter home, he said that he and his Marines were “Prepared to land and shoot everybody and everything that was breaking the peace.”
They landed amidst a 55-hour ongoing firefight between rebels and government forces. They found the American consul hiding in the rafters of the consulate, wrapped in an American flag. Once they got clear of the town with the American diplomat in tow, the opposing forces resumed killing each other.
At some point in all this traipsing about the jungle, Smedley Butler contracted a variety of bizarre tropical diseases. While rescuing the American consul, Butler was feverish with something or other and had sunken red eyes.
His men began calling him “Old Gimlet Eye.” A gimlet is either a cocktail made with gin and lime or a small tool designed to bore holes in wood. This was one of several respectful, though unsettling monikers bestowed upon him by his troops.
Vera Cruz and Smedley Butler’s First Medal of Honor
Butler subsequently fought all over South and Central America. He once led his battalion to relieve a besieged city on the island of Grenada while running a 104-degree fever.
In April of 1914, he led his troops in an assault on Vera Cruz, Mexico. The fight roiled across the city and ultimately cost American forces 17 dead and 63 wounded. Along the way, Smedley Butler earned the Medal of Honor.
His citation reads in part, “For distinguished conduct in battle, engagement of Vera Cruz, 22 April 1914. Major Butler was eminent and conspicuous in command of his battalion. He exhibited courage and skill in leading his men through the action of the 22d and in the final occupation of the city.” The rules had obviously been changed by then to allow officers to earn the rarefied decoration.
Haiti and Smedley Butler’s Second Medal of Honor
Six months later, Smedley Butler invaded Haiti. He first arrived in the lawless area around Fort Dipitie with 44 Marines. They were ambushed by a force of 400 indigenous Cacos and, surrounded, fought them off all night long. The following morning, Butler organized an infantry charge that repelled the enemy forces in disarray.
On 17 November 1915, Butler led an ad hoc battalion of Marines and sailors in an infiltration of Fort Rivière. The subsequent combat was hand-to-hand and pitiless. When they took the fort, 50 Haitians were dead, and Smedley Butler had earned his second Medal of Honor.
Here’s the citation: “For extraordinary heroism in action as Commanding Officer of detachments from the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and the Marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Major Butler led the attack on Fort Rivière, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of Marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Cacos. Reaching the fort on the southern side where there was a small opening in the wall, Major Butler gave the signal to attack, and Marines from the 15th Company poured through the breach, engaged the Cacos, took the bastion, and crushed the Cacos resistance.”
World War I Passed Him By, but Smedley Butler Kept Fighting
Butler was not granted a combat command during World War 1. There were several reasons for this, some political and others practical. Along the way, he had developed a reputation for erratic behavior. Butler subsequently came home to command the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.
From Marine General to Philadelphia’s Crime Fighter
This was a different time. In 1924, W. Freeland Kendrick had been elected mayor of Philadelphia and faced a city awash in Prohibition-driven corruption.
President Calvin Coolidge therefore released General Butler to serve as the city’s Director of Public Safety in charge of both fire and police forces. Butler reassigned his police officers to unfamiliar precincts to upset the inevitable protection rackets he knew to be active.
In his first two days on the job, Butler’s cops raided 900 illegal liquor clubs. He was quoted as having told his officers, “I don’t believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman’s gun in this city; go out and get some.” I wonder how that might go over today….
The Business Plot: Smedley Butler’s Strangest Battle
Butler eventually retired and became an outspoken critic of war profiteering. In November of 1934, Butler claimed that there was a plot afoot led by prominent American businessmen to field a 500,000-man army of military veterans and march on Washington, depose FDR, and install MG Butler as dictator.
Along the way, Butler named names. The alleged conspirators dismissed the claims as bluff and bluster, but subsequent evidence came to light that lent credence to the plot. Regardless, Butler’s testimony before a House committee drove those behind it back into the shadows. Historians now call this sordid episode the Business Plot.
The Fighting Quaker’s Final Years and Legacy
Major General Butler finally retired to Newton Township, Pennsylvania, with his wife. In 1940, he fell ill and was found to be suffering from what was likely stomach cancer. He had a drinking history, and videos I tracked down in preparing this article sounded like he was a smoker as well.
“The Fighting Quaker,” also known as “Old Gimlet Eye,” succumbed to his disease in June of 1940. He was 58 years old. A real “Break Glass in Case of War” Marine, Smedley Butler was indeed a Leatherneck’s Leatherneck.
Shot three times and still refusing to quit, Dr. Arthur Martin-Leake became one of only three men ever to earn the Victoria Cross twice. His story makes most definitions of courage seem inadequate.
There is kind of a weird dichotomy in my world. As a Bible-believing evangelical Christian who served as a combat arms officer, I came to grips with the peaceful tenets of my faith juxtaposed against the prospect of ripping the very life out of our great nation’s enemies. Then I left all of that and entered medical training, eventually formally taking the Hippocratic Oath.
The modern version of that pledge is actually fairly verbose. The last bit reads, “If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.” That honestly seems a bit unduly touchy-feely to me, but you get the gist.
Curiously, the earliest surviving version of the oath of Hippocrates dates back to 43 AD and specifically forbids abortion. Additionally, the concept of “Primum Non Nocere” or “First Do No Harm” isn’t actually in there per se. “I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm” typically substitutes today.
It is respect for the Hippocratic Oath that typically keeps physicians from participating in state-sponsored executions. It’s pretty tough to “First Do No Harm” if your objective is to institutionally kill somebody. It can therefore seem a bit incongruous that a professional medicine man might pack a gun every day or bear arms in service to his country.
Personally, I never struggled with any of that. I read Christ’s mandate to turn the other cheek as a personal thing. Standing idly by while evil men harm innocent folk never seemed terribly righteous to me. That’s certainly not the way real men like Moses, David, Joshua, or Nehemiah might have done it.
As such, while I do spend my days stamping out disease, I also pack a gun whenever I’m out where the Wild Things Roam and then sleep soundly afterwards. It turns out I am not the only physician to have found such balance.
The Guy
Born in April of 1874, Arthur Martin-Leake was the fifth son of Stephen and Isabel Martin-Leake at Standon outside Ware, Hertfordshire. Arthur also had two sisters. Four of the five male Martin-Leake siblings earned commissions in the British Army. The fifth was a Naval officer who captained the first combat vessel to be torpedoed by the Germans during WW1. One of his Army brothers perished in a ballooning accident over the English Channel while in uniform.
Martin-Leake attended Westminster School and then matriculated at University College Hospital. He graduated with his medical degree at age 19 in 1893. That seems a bit young to me, but medicine was not quite the complicated bucket of snakes back then that it is today.
After graduation, Martin-Leake served at Hemel Hempstead District Hospital. In 1899, the young doctor signed on with the 42d (Hertfordshire) Company, Imperial Yeomanry. The British Empire was at war in South Africa, and Arthur wanted to do his bit.
The Boer War was, in a word, complicated. There were several major phases, but the most compelling was the Second Boer War. This bloody counterinsurgency scrap cost the British Empire more than 100,000 casualties. 22,092 of these were KIA.
On the other side of the balance sheet, 51,555 Boer commandos and sundry auxiliaries were rendered hors de combat. Along the way, 26,370 Boer women and children perished in concentration camps alongside an unknown number of indigenous Africans.
Atrocities were committed by both sides. It was a dark time. There were nonetheless extraordinary examples of individual heroism to be found in both camps.
The Warrior Doc
Martin-Leake spent a year in combat as a trooper with the Imperial Yeomanry. Afterwards, he remained in South Africa as a civilian surgeon before joining the South African Constabulary.
The SAC was a paramilitary organization established in 1900 by the British Army to pacify areas captured from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State during the preceding unpleasantness. Keeping that mob in check was no mean feat.
At age 27, Arthur Martin-Leake was serving with the 5th Field Ambulance in 1902. The Second Boer War raged, and there was blood aplenty spilt on both sides of the line. In such a gory space, competent medical support was critical.
The Fight
On 8 February while his unit was engaged at Vlakfontein, Captain Martin-Leake was called upon to tend to British wounded. King Edward VII later awarded the young Army surgeon the Victoria Cross for his actions that bloody day. This was the narrative:
“During the action at Vlakfontein, on the 8th February, 1902, Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake went up to a wounded man, and attended to him under a heavy fire from about 40 Boers at 100 yards range. He then went to the assistance of a wounded Officer, and, whilst trying to place him in a comfortable position, was shot three times, but would not give in till he rolled over thoroughly exhausted. All the eight men at this point were wounded, and while they were lying on the Veldt, Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake refused water till everyone else had been served.”
Now appreciate, this was a big deal. The Victoria Cross is the British equivalent to the American Medal of Honor. Since 1854, the VC has been awarded 1,358 times. 295 of those were posthumous. By contrast, since 1863, the MOH has been awarded 3,555 times.
Suffering from three bullet wounds, Martin-Leake was in quite the bad way. He was eventually evacuated back to Britain due to his injuries. The king presented his award on 2 June 1902.
A Warrior Without a War
Recovering from combat injuries was and is typically an arduous process. Particularly back in the heady days before antibiotic drugs, getting over a trio of bullet wounds took a minute. To keep himself occupied, Dr. Martin-Leake studied up on his surgery texts while he healed. In 1903, he qualified as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.
In addition to a quick mind and an almost lethal dose of patriotic fervor, Arthur Martin-Leake was afflicted with a most deplorable wanderlust. Once he healed sufficiently to travel, the certified war hero signed on as Chief Medical Officer with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. It seemed Dr. Martin-Leake was now headed to India.
Along the way, he made time to get married. Arthur was the only one of the Martin-Leake children to do so. His wife perished shortly thereafter in India under suspicious circumstances. History seems to have forgotten the details.
Well, That Didn’t Take Long…
In 1912, Dr. Martin-Leake volunteered for the British Red Cross and was attached to the Montenegrin Army during the Balkan Wars. Dr. Martin-Leake subsequently tended to the wounded during the Siege of Scutari. At least this time he didn’t get shot.
The Balkans were the early 20th century version of the Middle East. Those lunatics were forever fighting over something or other. In fact, it was in the Balkans that the world’s next proper dustup conflagrated. In 1914 in Sarajevo, a disaffected anarchist named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. This kicked over an anthill that ultimately morphed into World War 1. Dr. Martin-Leake got in on the ground floor.
A Serious Scrap
Everything Martin-Leake had done up until this point was simply preparation for combat on the Western Front during the First World War. Martin-Leake fell in as a Lieutenant with his old unit, the 5th Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Late in 1914, the 5th Field Ambulance was in action near Zonnebeke, Belgium. History has come to refer to this bloody fight as the First Battle of Ypres.
This was combat on a whole new scale. Unlike previous wars, this forsaken place saw the widespread use of such diabolical stuff as belt-fed machineguns and poison gas. Over 35 bloody days, a quarter of a million men were either killed or seriously wounded. 55,000 of those were British.
Borderline Unbelievable
Amidst the fetid trench warfare that so characterized humanity’s first truly industrialized war, LT Martin-Leake once again willingly placed himself in the thick of the action to rescue wounded Tommies trapped in No-Man’s Land. Miraculously, he was not himself killed. However, he did earn a second Victoria Cross. Here’s the citation:
“Lieutenant Arthur Martin-Leake, Royal Army Medical Corps, who was awarded the Victoria Cross on 13th May, 1902, is granted a Clasp for conspicuous bravery in the present campaign: — For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty throughout the campaign, especially during the period 29th October to 8th November, 1914, near Zonnebeke, in rescuing, whilst exposed to constant fire, a large number of the wounded who were lying close to the enemy’s trenches.”
In the annals of the British Empire, only three men have earned the Victoria Cross twice. Nineteen Americans can make a comparable claim with the Medal of Honor. In March of 1915, Martin-Leake was promoted to Major and assumed command of the 46th Field Hospital. He ended the war as a Lieutenant Colonel.
The Rest of the Story
When the guns fell silent, LTC Martin-Leake still couldn’t seem to settle down. He returned to India yet again seeking adventure and eventually retired in 1937. In the late 1930’s he purchased and apparently flew a de Havilland Tiger Moth airplane without bothering to obtain any formal training as a pilot. With the onset of World War 2, the aging warrior physician commanded an ARP post. ARP stood for Air Raid Precautions. These civil defenders helped protect British civilians during the Blitz.
LTC Martin-Leake, two-time recipient of Great Britain’s highest award for gallantry in combat, died at home in 1953 at High Cross near Ware. He was attended at his death by his faithful dog Waif. Waif later found a forever home thanks to a formal appeal by the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Martin-Leake’s Victoria Cross with bar is on display at the Army Medical Services Museum in Aldershot, England today. Arthur Martin-Leake was that rare hybrid warrior/healer. His extraordinary exploits were the stuff of legend.