This story needs to be retold.
It was a footnote in another thread, so I am starting a new one here.
After fighting anti-democratic regimes in Europe and the Pacific for four years, World War II veterans were pretty happy to head home and have a drink or three to celebrate. Those parties lasted a long time.
But when one corrupt city government began to crack down on the hardened veterans, as well as local citizens, with repeated, excessive fines and arrests, the GIs fought for freedom once again. They violently ousted the local regime and ran the sheriff and his cronies out of town, never to return.
The government of McMinn County was run by an entrenched political machine that had controlled much of Tennessee politics since the early 1930s. In McMinn County, that machine was run by Paul Cantrell, the elected sheriff. For 10 years, he ran that county like he was a feudal lord.