Tomorrow is Veterans Day 2025, I am reminded of how our family has answered the call to serve for at least the last 165 years. How things have changed — today, I am not aware of a single family
member serving on active duty in the armed forces, nor do I have acquaintances who are serving.
William Alvin Butt (1843-1934) – Civil War
My great-grandfather, William Alvin Butt, served from 1862 to 1865 in Company C, 12th Regiment of Illinois Infantry. He was discharged in 1865 at DeValls Bluff, Arkansas, where he
was part of the Union occupation.
Figure 1 – William Alvin Butt
Figure 2 – This postcard was sent by William Alvin Butt from DeValls Bluff Arkansas in January 1864 where he was part of the Union occupation. DeValls Bluff was strategically important to both the Union and Confederate armies as a major
White River port and as head of the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad. It became a key Union supply depot after its fall 1863 occupation, as well as a haven for refugees, both freedmen and white. Mounted Confederates operated around the town during 1864, attacking
the railroad and Union troops on the nearby prairie
Andrew Jackson Cox – Civil War
To be fair, Andrew J. Cox My other great-grandfather on my father’s side, my grandmother Butt’s father, fought for the Confederacy. He was a member of the 27th
Arkansas Infantry, Carroll Regiment Company E. He was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, in 1840, but by the time of the Civil War had moved to Carroll County, Arkansas. He was severely wounded and appears to have mustered out early.
Figure 3 – Andrew Jackson Cox
Harry King (1886 – 1971) – WWI
My grandfather, Harry King, was beyond draft age in WWI, but as a Methodist minister, he served as a volunteer in the YMCA at Camp Sevier, Greenville SC.
Festus Orestes Butt (1876 – 1972)
My other grandfather, Festus Orestes Butt, was also beyond draft age in WWI. In WW2, he offered to serve but was turned down because of his age. Instead, he stepped up to serve as temporary chancery
judge when his son, John Kenneth Butt, joined the Navy in WWII.
Edgar King (1884-1970)
My grandfather’s brother, Edgar King, was a career Army officer in the Medical Corps. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Col. King was the ranking medical officer in the Hawaiian Islands (and therefore
the Pacific).
At Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, Edgar King was Chief Surgeon – he handled all the casualties (for all service branches). He was prepared – he had known months in advance of a Japanese attack
that Hawaii was vulnerable and had requisitioned adequate medical supplies." He was later cited for outstanding service, promoted to brigadier general, head of the Medical Department of Hawaiian Islands (then a U.S. Territory). He retired from there and with
his wife Susan lived in Kerrville and El Paso, TX – later in Reno, NV. (All of above from Cecilia King Butt, 1990)
When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, the surgeon’s office of the Hawaiian Department, located at Fort Shafter on the island of Oahu, was composed of 10 officers
(including 4 of the Regular Army), 8 enlisted men, and 15 civilians. In addition, certain medical, dental, and veterinary officers assigned to hospitals on Oahu were considered part of the department surgeon’s staff. On the day of the attack, the office of
the department surgeon, Col. (later Brig. Gen.) Edgar King, MD, was divided, together with the other technical services, into forward and rear echelons. Colonel King was made directly responsible to the commanding general of the department (Lt. Gen. Delos
C. Emmons, after 17 December), who maintained his forward echelon headquarters underground in Aliamanu Crater. Forward echelon performed the functions of a theater of operations headquarters; rear echelon of those of a communications zone. The Hawaiian Department
was placed under martial law, and as the commanding general held the additional responsibility of military governor (with headquarters at Iolani Palace, Honolulu), Colonel King became responsible for the health of civilians, as well as for that of Army troops,
in Hawaii.( https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/orgadmin/org_admin_wwii_chpt9.htm
Figure 4 – Col. Edgar King, 3rd from left, back row
During the year before Pearl Harbor, my mother, Cecilia King, spent 9 months in Hawaii with her Uncle Ed (Col. Ed King) and Aunt Susan. The book, “Cecilia
King’s Extraordinary Senior Trip: Honolulu 1940-41 – Before Pearl Harbor,” provides a detailed and rare look at the state of the military in Hawaii prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.
I found this project compelling and spent several months organizing and compiling it for several reasons. First is personal
– this is about my mother before she was my mother. She was thousands of miles away, both literally and figuratively, from the mother I eventually knew. Second, it describes one of the most pivotal times in American history, when the United States emerged
from the debilitating Great Depression politically isolationist, but began the rapid transition from an almost insignificant military power to become in a short five years the undisputed world military and economic leader. The attack on Pearl Harbor, which
catapulted the United States into WWII, happened only a little over five months after Cecilia left Honolulu and the social milieu of military families that would be most affected. Third, Cecilia’s documentation of immediately-pre-WWII life in Hawaii is extraordinarily
detailed and colorful and describes many places that I have had an opportunity to visit over the years. I spent the summer of 1966, twenty years after she was there, in Honolulu in a summer job with the National Park Service Historical American Buildings Survey
(HABS).[1] In subsequent years, I have visited four Hawaiian Islands, some several times and visited most of the places described in my mother’s letters.
Thomas Franlklin Butt (1917-2000) – WW2
My father, Thomas Franklin Butt was called to active duty in 1940 after receiving an ROTC commission. He had also become a licensed attorney. From 1940 to 1944, he was an Infantry training officer
at half a dozen locations. In 1944, he attended a special school to learn about foreign claims, landed in France and spent the next 14 months as a foreign claims officer in France and Belgium. He stayed in the Army Reserve until his retirement in 1971 as a
brigadier general in the highest-ranking JAG position, the mobilization designation as chief judge of the Army Judiciary.
Figure 5 – Major Thomas F. Butt in Belgium in 1945
Figure 6 – Cecilia and Tom Butt in 1971, when Tom retired from the Army Reserve as a brigadier general and mobilization chief judge of the U.S. Army Judiciary
You can follow my father’s WWII service in the book,
“A WWII Romance: Tom and Cecilia Butt,” available from Amazon (click
here)
I also had two uncles, my father’s brothers, who served in WWII, Dr. William Jackson (“Jack”) Butt and John Kenneth Butt.
Dr. William Jackson (“Jack”) Butt (1912-1977)
Dr. Jack Butt served 26 months in the Army Medical Corps in France, being discharged in 1945 as a major. He landed either on D-Day or shortly after and became executive officer for the chief
surgeon (not sure what unit).
Figure 7 – Tom and brother Jack Butt in Belgium, 1945
Figure 8 – Dr. Jack Butt, Executive Officer to the Chief Surgeon, 1945
John Kenneth Butt (1902-1949) WWII
John Kenneth Butt took leave from his position as chancery judge in Northwest Arkansas to serve in the Seabees in WWII.
James E. (“Jimmie”) Ryland (1917- 2005) – WW2
Shirley’s father, James E. Ryland entered active duty in the Army Air Corps in March 1944 and served as a B-24 pilot until October 1944.
Jimmie flew five combat bombing missions over German-held territory from Italy. On his fifth mission, his plane took flak while bombing Vienna on October 17, 1944. His tail gunner was killed, and Jimmie was severely
wounded in his calf muscle. He returned to base safely, but it ended his flying career, and he spent the next nine months recuperating in hospitals. Shirley was born November 10, 1944, while her father was in a hospital in Bari,
Italy until December 15, 1944, when he boarded a hospital ship to return to the U.S. he learned of Shirley’s birth through the Red Cross. Jimmie finished out his military service as a Transition Dispatcher
at an Air Transport Command Base and was separated from the service on October 1, 1945. He was awarded the Air Medal, Purple Heart and the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon with three Bronze Service Stars. In 1945, Jimmie resumed his sales career,
and the family moved back to Memphis where Jimmie and Chew raised three daughters and a son and remained there the rest of their lives.
Figure 9 – B-24 Liberator
Figure 10 – Jimmie Ryland with daughters Katie and Shirley
Charles Pinckney Reid ( 1914 – 1976) – WWII
Charles Pinckney (“C.P., or “Pinck”) Reid was my Uncle Pinck, the husband of my mother’s sister, Carol.
C.P. Reid attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, went overseas to England in April 1943, where he was involved in planning for D-Day, until 1944. He was in Paris in 1945, and in Berlin
by June 1945, where he was involved in setting up the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945). He was awarded the Legion of Merit “for his part in laying the groundwork for D-Day,” and the Bronze Star for “meritorious service in plotting airborne operations.”
He returned at the end of 1945. His rank at separation was captain, and the insignia on his hat indicates an 82nd Airborne Paratrooper.
Figure 11 – Commercial Appeal, November 25, 1945
Martin Andrew Butt (1947-1969) – Vietnam
My younger brother, Martin Andrew Butt
enlisted in the Marines in 1966 and spent most of 1967 in Vietnam assigned in a support role, including guard duty, in Marine Aircraft Group 11 (MAG-11) Group Supply in Da Nang. He was wounded in an attack on the
air base and received a purple heart. Martin died in an automobile accident in 1969 at the age of 22, less than two years after returning from Vietnam.
For more, see “Remembering Martin Andrew Butt.”
Figure 12 – Martin Andrew Butt
William Jackson Butt, II (1950 – ) – Korea
My youngest brother, William Jackson (“Jack”) Butt, II, attended the University of Virginia on a ROTC scholarship and was commissioned a second lieutenant
upon graduation in 1972. He received his J.D. with Honors in 1975 and went on active duty with the Army, was promoted to captain, and served a year in Korea as a military lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. While on active duty he completed his
masters in tax law at George Washington University. Jack was honorably discharged to the reserves in 1979, where he ultimately was promoted to major.
Figure 13 – William Jackson Butt, II
Jack tells an interesting story about “The war That Wasn’t,” Operation Paul Bunyon
After three years of bitter fighting, the Korean War stalemated in 1953. It took over 50,000 American lives and wounded 100,000 more. A truce was declared and each army withdrew 2,000
meters from the line of battle along the 38th parallel, leaving a 4,000 meter wide de-militarized zone. Truce talks began at the destroyed village of Panmunjon, in the middle of the DMZ. For the next fifty years it remained the potentially hottest battle of
the cold war between Communism and Democracy.
When I arrived 22 years later in 1975 as a young captain, both sides were still claiming victory, no peace terms were agreed, heated negotiation continued daily, and the 38th parallel
was the most heavily armed border in the world. The threat of war was underscored regularly by attacks in which dozens of Americans died.
Technically, I was assigned to the 19th support brigade headquartered safely in the heart of South Korea. It provided bullets, beans, transportation, medical support, and in my case
legal services to the front line troops. We were what the real soldiers called REMF’s – rear echelon mother “f .” However, I was detached forward.
The Southern edge of the DMZ was defended by 13 Korean combat divisions: over 200,000 entrenched, heavily armed troops, looking out of their foxholes 24 hours a day to their enemies
4000 meters away, truly believing that the war could start the next day
The U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division anchored the line because North Korea needed to know that any aggression would trigger the full involvement of the United States of America. Figure
14 – 2nd Infantry Division patrolling south of the DMZ
10 miles to the rear of the DMZ was the I Corps Headquarters whose commander, General James Hollingsworth commanded in those 13 divisions the largest field Army in the world.
Attached to this HQ was a Signal Battalion which provided General Hollingsworth, whether he was in a jeep, tank, foxhole or helicopter, 24/7 instantaneous communications to each of
his division commanders, the Pentagon, and the President of the United States.
Also attached to the Corps headquarters were several attack helicopter squadrons, and artillery and missile batteries, charged with the defense of the Corps HQ in the event of war. I
was the legal assistance officer and defense counsel for these I Corps HQ support troops.
These were all front line positions, where if combat occurred, we would be in it. I was issued full battle gear, and when the frequent alerts sounded in the wee hours of the morning,
I mustered promptly to my duty station (my law office) fully armed and packed for deployment . I returned home on leave in May 1976 to be married and returned with Anne.
This remote duty provided no support for wives. My wedding gift to her was a bicycle, because we were prohibited personal cars in that tactical situation . Two months later, on August
18, two American officers took a work detail into the truce zone to cut foliage blocking visibility of the approaches. The trimming, though previously approved through official channels, was challenged by a much larger group of North Korean guards. When the
Americans did not stop, the North Korean officer in charge struck and killed the senior American officer, Captain Boniface, with a single Karate chop to the neck. A general melee broke out and the work detail fled; the second officer, Lt. Barrett, sought refuge
in a ditch, where he was found and chopped to death with the hatchets abandoned by the work detail.
The officers of the Corps Signal battalion were friends of mine, and of course they provided the communications between General Hollingsworth and the Pentagon. The day after the murderous
attack, the executive officer of the Battalion, Major Jack Hayman, approached Anne and me and said, “This tree thing is not over; when the balloon goes up (army slang for when the stuff hits the fan), you will have no duties here. Take your weapon, all the
Korean and U.S. cash you can carry, get on your bicycles and ride south – do not take a cab or bus, because the roads will be closed. That’s the best advice I can give you.”
Three days later, Anne and I arrived on post for the duty day, to find that of the thousand personnel normally present, only 4 people were left – the guard at the gate, the post chaplain,
Anne and me. The entire HQ was tactically deployed – to the air, to the field, to secret bunkers. We spent a very long, nervous day in the deadly silent officers club with the chaplain, sipping coffee, wondering what to do next – and the poor chaplain didn’t
even have a bicycle!
Late in the day, units of the 51st Signal Battalion started filtering back in. It took a week to get the whole story. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had pushed for bombing North
Korea, but the Pentagon prevailed: On August 21st,a special squad of combat engineers armed with chain saws moved into to the treaty are, surrounded and defended by two heavily armed platoons of infantry and 50 black belt South Korean special forces soldiers;
the access bridges into the area from the North had been secretly mined by Army rangers with explosives and were under the calibrated sights of heavy artillery; 4 squadrons of fully armed cobra helicopter gunships lifted into in the air within sight of the
DMZ; the full tactical air force in South Korea, hundreds of U.S. and south Korean jet fighters, went aloft loaded with munitions and within sight, hearing, or radar of the DMZ, and above them, squadrons of B-52 heavy bombers had left Guam the night before
loaded with maximum bombardment and were now overhead, all augmented by the full deployment of the aircraft and battleship long guns of the Seventh Fleet and its aircraft carrier Midway which had steamed within range the day before. Every firing tube of every
artillery unit of 13 divisions along the 150 mile- long DMZ were loaded, and aimed, at tactical targets north of the DMZ….. and then we just cut the damned tree down.
Despite North Korea’ s persistent, belligerent, and sometimes deadly posture, North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung blinked. No reciprocal action was taken, and Anne and I heaved a vast,
a vast, sigh of relief that we would not be riding our bicycles south.
Thomas King Butt (1944 – ) – Vietnam
My relatively short two-year military career began in the spring of 1968 when I arrived at Ft. Belvoir, VA, to begin the Engineer Officer Basic Course. Six weeks
later, I was a fully trained Army engineer officer with the MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) Combat Engineer Unit Commander. With an architecture degree and Army engineer training, imagine my surprise when the “Green Machine” sent me to Ft. Polk, LA, as
a Basic Combat Training Officer responsible for turning raw recruits, mostly draftees, into trained killers. I was far more proficient with a T-square and a triangle than with an M-14 and hand-to-hand combat, but I learned fast. Ft. Polk, incidentally, perennially
makes the list of the worst
U.S. military duty stations in the world. Business Insider listed Ft. Polk as the Army’s
worst duty station.
After about nine months at Ft. Polk, it was almost a relief to find myself on a plane to Southeast Asia on my 24th birthday. I ended up with an assignment as assistant S-3 (operations)
and liaison officer at the headquarters of the 159th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer Brigade, Long Binh, RVN, finally doing something I was actually trained to do. For the next year, I monitored, reported on and trouble shot the hundreds of missions undertaken
by the three or four battalions and attached companies, comprising some 3,000 engineer troops, under control of the 159th Group. These included construction of roads, bridges, airfields and bases, land clearing and quarrying and producing crushed rock and
asphalt. For some grainy but interesting home movies, see:
- Tom Butt, Vietnam 1969-70, HHC 159th Engineer
Group, 20th Engineer Brigade - Mission to Ham Tan, Vietnam 1969
- Construction of Corduroy Road, MSR Zinc,
Vietnam 1969 - Saigon from the Rooftop1969
- The Streets of Saigon 1969
- Mission to Vung Tau, Vietnam 1969
- Party for Children of Mama Sans, Long Binh,
Vietnam 1969 - Vietnam from Above 1969
- Phu Cuong Float Bridge, Vietnam 1969
- Changing of Command, 159th Engr. Gp., Vietnam
1969 - R&R in Sydney, New
Year 1970
Figure 15 – 1st Lieutenant Tom Butt at the Phu Cuong Bridge across the Saigon River, on a road connecting Long Binh to Cu Chi. The bridge was built in 1968 by units of the 159th Engineer Group and then rebuilt in 1969 after the Viet Cong
destroyed part of it.
Figure 16 – My dress uniform. On the right shoulder is the 20th Engineer Brigade patch, indicating deployment with that unit in a combat zone. Ribbons indicate the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Republic
of Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star Medal and the Army Commendation Medal
Figure 17 – My military career summed up in three column inches
My tour ended in March of 1970, and I took a trip around the world, going west, instead of coming directly back to the U.S.
You can read about my adventures in the book,
“An Architect Goes to War – To Vietnam and Back,” available from Amazon.
David Jackson Butt (1946-2016) Vietnam
David was my cousin, the younger son of my uncle (my father’s brother), Jack (Dr. William Jackson Butt). He served in Vietnam as a Marine sniper. He was featured on the cover of a book, “Arkansas
men at War,” by James Guy Tucker (former governor of Arkansas)
Figure 18 – David Butt on the Cover of "Arkansas Men at War."
John Edward Butt (1942-1971) – Vietnam Era
John was my cousin, the older son of my uncle (my father’s brother), Jack (Dr. William Jackson Butt). He served in the Arkansas Army National Guard in the late 1960s.
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