Armistice Day Versus Veterans’ Day
Matthew Hoh / Peace & Planet News
In this brilliant talk, Marine combat veteran, Matt Hoh, talks about deception from the U.S. empire, combat veterans, PTSD, guilt and suicide. Very significantly, Matt shows his big heart and mentions our animal brethren who are also victims of war. Matt gave this talk for the Community Church of Boston run by singer songwriter and longtime peace and justice activist Dean Stevens.–The editors
(Fall 2025 Issue) — Smedley Butler was just referenced, and the Veterans For Peace chapter—the Smedley Butler chapter up here—that was the very first Veterans For Peace outfit that I ever came into contact with. At that point in 2009, as I was speaking out against the Afghan war, I’d spent 10 years in the Marine Corps, time in the State Department. I was a young man [I’ll add arrogant] and this idea of Veterans For Peace was kind of like, who are these loons? Who are these guys that I’ve got to now spend some time with?
And I was just absolutely enthralled with them, endeared with them—not just for their passion or for their experience, but because of their knowledge and because they put into practice, because they put into action what they had gone through. The mission of Veterans For Peace is to educate about the true costs of war. And that’s what Veterans For Peace does. That’s what chapters in Veterans For Peace, like the Smedley Butler chapter in Massachusetts, helped me do.
Because as I was starting to speak out against the war and going through this psychological, psychiatric, spiritual struggle with who I had once been, it was finding resonance, finding familiarity, finding fellowship and comradeship with members of Veterans For Peace that really helped me survive that process.
Easily the Most Profitable,
Surely the Most Vicious
I want to go back to Smedley Butler for a bit. I know we have a youth group here, and they may not be familiar with Smedley Butler. He is the most decorated Marine in Marine Corps history. If the rules had been different, he’d be the most decorated service member across the entire US military’s history. Smedley Butler served for 33 years in the Marine Corps. He received two Medals of Honor. If the rules had been different, he would have received a third.
Following his service, he decried war. He broke from the silence that often accompanies [service members], particularly general officers, when they retire. He broke from that and he spoke out against not just war, but America’s imperialism.
I want to take a moment to read a couple of his more poignant or forceful quotes. Smedley Butler’s definition or commentary on war was that:
War is a racket. It has always been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
He spoke about his own career, his own service, what he actually did. And I’m going to read the longer quote here because I think it’s very important as we are on the verge of war in Venezuela, and I think a broader war possibly throughout Central and South America to achieve the Trump administration’s grand strategy of consolidation of control of the hemisphere.
Of his own career, Major General Butler said:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service. And during that period, I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of a half dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902 to 1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interest in 1916. I helped make Honduras ripe for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do is operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Here is the complete video interview:
