Medal of Honor · Veracruz
Smedley Darlington Butler
Major, U.S. Marine Corps
- Date of Action
- April 22, 1914
- Location
- Veracruz, Mexico
- Medal Presented
- December 4, 1914
Values Embodied
- Courage
- Commitment
- Integrity
Official Citation
This citation is paraphrased from public-domain histories and is pending verbatim verification against the Congressional Medal of Honor Society archive.
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.
Biography
Before the War
Smedley Darlington Butler was born July 30, 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, into a prominent Quaker family. His father was a U.S. congressman. Smedley lied about his age to enlist in the Marine Corps at sixteen, in 1898, during the Spanish–American War. Over the next sixteen years, he fought in the Philippines, the Boxer Rebellion, and a string of Latin American expeditions — the first of what he later called his “rackets” for American business interests.
The Action
In April 1914, to block a shipment of German arms from reaching Mexican forces loyal to Victoriano Huerta, American naval forces landed at Veracruz. Butler — then a 32-year-old major — commanded the 3rd Battalion of Marines. Over the 21st and 22nd, his battalion advanced through the streets of the city under fire from rooftops, seminary windows, and the Mexican Naval Academy, clearing building by building until the port was secure.
Butler was cited for conspicuous gallantry at the head of his battalion and presented with the Medal of Honor. He later tried to return it, embarrassed that the action had not, in his view, warranted the award — a request the Navy denied. The following year, in Haiti, he would receive a second one.
After the War
Butler rose to major general, commanded the Marine Corps base at Quantico, and ran the Philadelphia police department on loan from the Corps during Prohibition. After retirement he became a nationally known critic of American foreign interventions, writing the 1935 pamphlet War Is a Racket, and testified in 1934 before Congress about a plot he said he was asked to help lead against President Roosevelt. He died June 21, 1940, in Philadelphia, and is buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester.