I spent 33 years and four months in active service...[in] the Marine corps. 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 raketeer for capitalism... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912... I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
— General Smedley Butler, 1931