Category: Leadership of the highest kind
Soldiers do curious things for some of the dumbest reasons. Referring to the Medal of Honor, General George Patton once opined, “I’d give my immortal soul for that little blue ribbon.” That is objectively insane.
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Medals and Awards
I never met an inspiring soldier who chased awards. The true heroes I have encountered were, to a man, humble. Jack Lucas threw himself on two grenades at once in the opening salvoes of the invasion of Iwo Jima, rightfully earning the Medal of Honor in the process. When this indestructible Marine found out I was a veteran, he thanked me for my service. I wasn’t worthy to polish that man’s boots.
Like others of his rarefied caliber, Jack deferred the glory to those who did not come home. I am ever amazed that, as a people, we can create such men as these. Of all the silly baubles that drive soldiers to ridiculous heights, be they funny hats, uniform patches, or scraps of colored ribbon, none should be so dreaded as the Purple Heart. To earn that medal, you’ve got to bleed.
The Purple Heart
George Washington thought that one up. The award was first called the Badge of Military Merit, and it was established on 7 August 1782. The medal bears Washington’s likeness even today. Washington only presented three of the awards, though he empowered his subordinates to deliver more. The Badge of Military Merit then languished unused until 1927.
While several military men worked on the project, it finally came to fruition under the leadership of Douglas MacArthur. The specific details of the modern Purple Heart were designed by an Army heraldic specialist named Elizabeth Will. The finalized award was formally resurrected on 22 February 1932, the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth. 
The Purple Heart was awarded retroactively for wounds received during World War 1. MacArthur himself was the first recipient. It was standardized across all services in December of 1942. However, the Purple Heart is a military award no sensible person covets.
A Circuitous Path
Born on October 27, 1910, William Gail White was the youngest of three children born to a Presbyterian minister and his schoolteacher wife. White attended High School in Bakersfield, California. From the very beginning, he wanted to be a soldier. White volunteered for a summer training program called the Citizens Military Training Camp (CMTG) and was designated honor trainee. Upon graduating in 1929, White began competing as part of the Ninth Corps Area CMTG Rifle team.
A superb marksman, White was recommended for a commission as a Second Lieutenant, but he was too young. He enrolled in the San Jose Teachers College in 1930 but dropped out and enlisted in the US Marine Corps. In the summer of 1930, White was assigned to the USS West Virginia as part of its Marine detachment. 
Exactly The Right Type of Person
White excelled as a Marine. He set the Marine Corps record with the Browning M2 machinegun, scoring 396 out of 400 on the 1,000-inch range. After eleven years as a Jarhead, William White left the Marines for civilian life. He worked for Shell Oil until 1941. However, with war approaching, White enlisted again, this time as an Army Private at age 31. He was assigned to the 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division stationed at Fort Ord, California. During one training mission in California, White crossed the Salinas River alone on an inflatable air mattress to gather intelligence on enemy dispositions. This earned him the nickname, “The Salinas River Sea Serpent.”
By the summer of 1944, White had indeed become a commissioned officer. Now 34, he was assigned as the Executive Officer for the 3rd Battalion, 330th Infantry Regiment, 83d Infantry Division. He later commanded his own battalion. White made Major 25 months to the day after enlisting as a Private. Suffice to say, it takes considerably longer than that today. By late June, White was moving into Carentan, France, to relieve the 101st Airborne after they assaulted Normandy.
William Gail White Attracted Pain
Major William Gail White was utterly fearless in combat. While advancing through the accursed Norman hedgerows, White struck out at a run, rallying his men to follow. Throwing himself onto the far berm, he spotted a pair of German machinegun positions sited to produce a crossfire in the next open field. The next American to arrive was a BAR man. White did not feel that he had time to direct the man’s fire, so he snatched up the BAR himself.
He then neutralized both positions before swapping magazines and striking out with the heavy gun for the next berm. Meanwhile, the poor BAR gunner who had lugged the massive weapon throughout training and the landings in France scurried behind shouting, “But Major, when do I get to use it?” White responded, “Never mind when you get to use it. Throw me another damn magazine…”
Normandy in the summer of 1944 was a dangerous place. White and his unit were facing the 17th SS Panzergrenadiers along with elements of the 5th and 6th Fallschirmjager Regiments. These elite troops fought fanatically for every yard of French dirt. On 5 July, Major White was hit in the chest by a 9mm round fired from a German MP40 submachinegun. This bullet struck him a glancing blow, blooding him badly without penetrating anything vital. Later that same day he caught a grenade fragment to his forehead. Those two injuries bought him two Purple Hearts in a single day.
Major White Kept Collecting Bullets
In the next forty-eight hours, Major White was wounded three more times. He was first struck in the shoulder by a piece of shrapnel from an artillery round. What put him down, however, was a bullet along with grenade fragments that synergistically shredded his forearm.
These wounds, his fifth and sixth, physically removed a substantial portion of his forearm and rendered him unconscious. Three inches’ worth of bone was visible when they evacuated him. He awoke to, “The face of the most beautiful blonde angel he had ever seen.” The exhausted Army nurse did her best to clean his battered body and brought him something to eat. Despite his being declared a critical surgical case, White still had to wait three days for space in a crowded operating theater.
Army surgeons reconstructed his forearm as best they could and covered the wound with a skin graft from his thigh. White later joked, “Every time my leg itches I have to scratch my arm.” However, the damage to his forearm muscles was severe, preventing him from using a weapon. This should have been his ticket back to the Z.I. (Zone of the Interior—Stateside).
Not Done Fighting
Major William Gail White still felt he had more war left to fight. When evacuated he had stashed a captured Walther P38 pistol in his gear. The hospital staff had stored the German weapon in their supply room. White retrieved it and spent hours trying to squeeze the double-action trigger. When finally he could reliably activate the weapon, White felt he could return to his unit. He subsequently went AWOL and caught a ride back to the continent from England.
White tried to find his old unit, but this was a chaotic time. While fighting as a replacement in Luxembourg he was showered in fragments from yet another German hand grenade. That was Purple Heart number seven.
As Tough As They Come
We lack the space to do this man justice. White was captured by the Germans but escaped, liberating another fourteen Americans in the process. This earned him the Silver Star. On 10 December 1944, White earned his second Silver Star during combat in Strauss, Germany. This action saw him eliminate three enemy machine gun positions, two Pzkfpw Mk IV tanks, and two self-propelled guns while capturing 31 German prisoners. Along the way, he caught a burst of machine gun fire to the belly. That was his eighth Purple Heart.
As a physician, this is tough to imagine. White was evacuated to England for a major belly surgery and colostomy. He subsequently crashed on the operating table. The surgeons had the chaplain administer the last rites, yet he miraculously recovered.
Major William Gail White: Back At It
After less than a month, White had his colostomy reversed. Two days after that he slipped out of the hospital and caught a C47 back to the war zone yet again. 48 hours before he had been pooping in a bag. Good Lord, what a man.
While fighting around the Elbe River, Major White was wounded a ninth time, his last before the German capitulation. However, this shot-up old hero wasn’t quite done. He later deployed yet again for the war in Korea.
By now White was more than 40 years old. During one engagement in Korea, communist forces shot the antenna off of the radio he was carrying. Another bullet also took off his cap. He later counted six bullet holes in his parka. Soon after, while serving as an advisor to a South Korean special forces unit, White made a one-round confirmed kill on a running North Korean soldier at 900 yards over open sights using an M1 Garand rifle.
White was eventually shot through the right chest with a Chicom rifle round. This was his tenth and final wound. Despite lots of surgery and a laborious recovery, the man still would not die. He subsequently went on to complete Airborne school and serve as a Ranger instructor. William White eventually retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
The Rest of the Story
The morality of employing two atomic bombs to end the war in the Pacific has been debated ever since the bomb bay doors opened on the Enola Gay back in August 1945. However, it is a historical fact that these two bombs ultimately saved countless lives on both sides by negating the need for an amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands.
During WW2, the US government manufactured 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals. Most of these were planned for use in the aftermath of Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. After the war, nearly 500,000 remained in storage. Even accounting for those that were lost, stolen, or wasted, as of 2000, the national stockpile still stood at around 120,000. The Purple Heart medals that are awarded to service personnel today are all more than 75 years old.
Lieutenant Colonel William Gail White, the frag magnet, finally died of natural causes on 6 April 1985. He was 74 years old. White was interred at Maplewood Cemetery in Kinston, North Carolina. Eventually, old age did what the Wehrmacht and the communist Chinese could not. Wow, what a stud.
On May 2, 1945, he was assigned to a rifle company of the 5th Marines during the invasion of Okinawa. That day, the 5th Marines were pushing uphill towards a ridge against determined Japanese resistance. The slope was strewn with Marine casualties, and Corpsman Bush moved unceasingly among them rendering aid despite the withering fire all around him.
When the attack passed over the crest of the ridge, he moved up to the top of the slope to aid a wounded Marine officer. A Japanese counterattack swept over the ridge just as he began administering blood plasma to his patient.
As the Japanese approached, Corpsman Bush gallantly held up the plasma bottle with one hand and fired a pistol at the Japanese with the other. Then he grabbed a carbine and killed six advancing Japanese. He suffered several serious wounds himself, including the loss of an eye.
He remained guarding his “officer patient” until the enemy were repulsed. Then, according to the official citation, he “valiantly refus[ed] medical treatment for himself until his officer patient had been evacuated…”
Smedley Butler was a complicated man but an exemplary Marine and an officer who truly led men and certainly has a place in the Marine Corps hall of fame. He also spoke against war and the government’s involvement in two books, Gangster for Capitalism and War is a Racket. He might be one of the most interesting men ever to live. Let’s explore some of the more interesting aspects of his life.
Likely rated a third Medal of Honor
Smedley Butler is one of the few men to ever earn two Medals of Honor, but he likely rated a third. In Tienstin, China, he witnessed another Marine wounded, and he charged out of the trench to rescue him. Butler was shot, as was a third Marine who attempted to assist them. Despite being shot, he escorted the wounded Marine for many miles, some say as many as 15, to get him to treatment. 
Four of Smedley’s men received the MOH, but at the time, officers were not eligible for the award. Instead, he was given a brevet promotion to captain at the age of 19. He was later eligible for the Brevet Medal and is one of only 20 officers ever to receive such an award.
Smedley would later earn two Medals of Honor. His first was in Veracruz and his second was in Haiti. He is one of three Marines to earn a MOH and a Brevet Medal and the only Marine to earn the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor.
Related: Faustin Wirkus – The US Marine who became a king
He held two patents
Smedley was both a warrior and a thinker, enough so that he was granted two patents. The first one was for an Infantry Fire Control Scale that was patented in 1918. His invention was essentially a range finder using a variety of scales to determine range in relation to the line of sight.
According to the Intercept, his second patent was a stable means to carry machine guns by donkey or mule.
He was a spy
In January 1914, Smedley Butler was ordered from his home in Panama to a Battleship Group off the coast of Mexico since a revolution was occurring in the country, and the American military needed to keep an eye on it. Butler and Navy Lieutenant Fletcher went ashore and Fletcher proposed they go deeper into the county to develop a detailed invasion plan should it be needed.
However, Butler would not go as a Marine but as a spy. With approval from Washinton, he took the train to Mexico City posing as a railroad official by the name of Mr. Johnson.
His cover was that he was searching for a lost railroad employee as he scoured the city. He gathered various pieces of intelligence on the Mexican Army including the weapons it used, its unit sizes, and their states of readiness. He also updated maps and verified railroad lines.
He even appears in a book written by Edith O’Shaughnessy, a wife to a diplomat in Mexico, who described him as “eager, intrepid, dynamic, efficient, unshaven!”
He cleared Philadelphia of corruption
In 1924, the mayor of Philadelphia contacted President Calvin Coolidge, asking for a military general to clear corruption out of the municipal government. Butler was granted leave from the Corps to assume the title of director of public safety in Philadelphia. He couldn’t fire corrupt officers, so he began switching entire units from one part of the city to another. This undermined and prevented protection rackets and corruption. 
Within his first two days on the job, Smedley Butler raided 900 speakeasies and locked them down or destroyed them. He was not one to pick and choose what areas he targeted and he shut down the Ritz Carlton and Union League, which catered to the social elite. He also gave the police uniforms and created armored car units carrying sawn-off shotguns to chase bandits.
His tactics were military and at times heavy-handed, for example, set up checkpoints and stopped citizens without cause. This created some issues, but he had enough support from the city to remain for a second year.
At the end of the second year, he resigned after being pressured by the city’s major. He was later quoted as saying, “cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in.”
The first general officer to be arrested since the Civil War
In 1931 Smedley Butler, who was then a major general, was giving a speech to the Philadelphia Contemporary Club and shared an anecdote told to him by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV who, when he was in Italy, rode with Mussolini in his car and interviewed him. The car was driving at high speed when it hit and killed a child. Mussolini kept driving and said, “What is one life in the affairs of a state?”
Butler’s relating of the story caused a political uproar in both Rome and Washington with the secretary of state apologizing to Mussolini, who denied the story, and Butler getting arrested. President Hoover ordered a court martial for Butler, however, public opinion was on Butler’s side. A cabinet officer told Hoover he could “see no profit in putting the Admirals up against a dashing Marine with a unique flair for publicity.”
Butler’s lawyer, another China Marine veteran, and Butler went to war with the State Department. Very quickly, the government agreed to drop charges and offer various deals. The two rejected all of them and eventually proposed their own which was that Butler would be reprimanded, but he would write his own reprimand. The State Department agreed but asked for a formal apology to Mussolini. While it seems that Butler agreed he never got around to that apology.
Exposing the Business Plot
The most famous action of Butler was exposing the Business Plot which was a supposed conspiracy by a group of American industry titans to overthrow the government and install a fascist dictatorship in the 1930s.
Butler was contacted by a man named Gerald MacGuire, a bonds salesman, about leading an army of half a million former soldiers. Smedley reported the information to the authorities and an investigation ensued. Although no evidence of a plot was found, the Business Plot remained a long-lasting conspiracy theory.
A complicated man
Smedley Butler was a complicated and fascinating man. He did some truly great things but also some self-admitted terrible things. I’m sure he remained conflicted about his life of service and the deeds done. He is a part of American history that certainly shouldn’t be forgotten.