A Quote by Smedley Butler

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

Smedley Butler

Quote Topics

Active Agile Commissioned Corps Country Force Four General Lieutenant Major Marine Marine Corps Member Military Military Force Military Service Months Most Ranks Second Served Service Spent Thirty Three Three Years Years

Quote Author

Smedley Butler
American - Soldier
July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940

I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

Smedley Butler

I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

Smedley Butler

My first direct encounter with the military was when I joined ROTC as a graduate student, although my father, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, can trace the military service in our family all the way back to the Revolutionary War.

Tammy Duckworth

During my 20 years as a Marine, I served three combat tours and as a Congressional Fellow advising a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee on defense and foreign policy. I went on to serve in the Pentagon as Marine Corps' liaison to the State Department.

Amy McGrath

In the Marine Corps, you meet this really broad segment of the country; you're working with people from all kinds of backgrounds. And it exposes you to the American military, particularly the American military at war.

Phil Klay

I spent four years in the Marine Corp, and a big part of the Marine Corp, especially in boot camp, is torture. The military is not going to like me saying that, but that's what it is. Boot camp is one of the most torturous things I've ever been through.

Travis Aaron Wade

General [James] Mattis's primary experience - indeed, his only experience - is as a member of the United States Marine Corps, where he served for 41 years. That's his experience.

James Mattis

We think of the Marine Corps as a military outfit, and of course it is, but for me, the U.S. Marine Corps was a four-year crash course in character education. It taught me how to make a bed, how to do laundry, how to wake up early, how to manage my finances. These are things my community didn't teach me.

J. D. Vance

The male role models I had all seemed to have been in the military. My father served in the army. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. There weren't any career soldiers in my family, but when I was young it seemed like a way of arriving at adulthood.

Kevin Powers

After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian.

Alexander Vindman

One of the first things I learned in the Marine Corps is that any military mission has to be defined as precisely as you can possibly define it, and then you size the force and equipment force to accomplish that mission without fail.

John Glenn

General Atomics, the progenitor of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, started life in 1955 when a major military contractor, General Dynamics, feared that the military hardware market might dry up. It began exploring peacetime uses of atomic energy, but abandoned the effort when cold-war military spending took off.

Charles Duhigg

I think a great idea would be involving our various military services along the border all the way from San Diego to Houston. We've got military bases all over the country. We can just move some people down there and let those cartels who are doing a lot of hurt to the youth of America, let those cartels fight against the Marine Corps.

Bobby Knight

I signed up for military service in the months following 9/11, and later, as a military intelligence officer, I felt called, like so many others, to volunteer for deployment and service in Afghanistan.

Jason Kander

On Veterans Day, the country honors those in uniform and the sacrifices they have made across the globe. But as a military spouse who reports on the issues facing military families, I've learned that one of the biggest challenges is when a service member transitions out of the armed forces and into the civilian workforce.