Happy Birthday Smedley Butler. Your name comes up in many diaries, but I didn’t know who were until a few months ago and still wonder why I hadn’t already. As a child of the 1960s, Smedley the Elephant was the advertising sidekick of Cap’n Crunch, of cereal fame. Were we collectively conditioned as a generation not to take anyone named Smedley seriously? Was it to overwrite the memory of a famous General with such a unique name? Butler’s book, first published in 1935, should be required reading in high school. The text can be found here. Among other things, it discusses broken promises to veterans, war profiteering and the influence of the financial sector on national and global policies. I thought it was curious a while back that when state department correspondence was disclosed, the perpetrators were scolded, but when they disclosed sensitive banking information, they were hunted down like dogs. Now it is easy to see why. The book is a quick read and makes you realize that we haven’t made much progress a hundred years after the beginning of World War I. Perhaps it is time to adopt the suggestions of a three star general who received the Medal of Honor twice. He also had the respect of thousands of his fellow veterans.
We could use another Smedley Butler. May you rest in peace sir.