History includes many lessons if you just take the time to learn them.

For instance, in 1945, battle-hardened vets returned home from WWII to McMinn County, Tennessee, along with its county seat of Athens, and found political corruption rampant. These men, who had just fought for liberty worldwide, were ready to fight for it on their own soil.

At a rally, a veteran proclaimed, “The principles that we fought for in this past war do not exist in our own home.”

Despite years of complaints about the corruption, the U.S. Department of Justice, under President Franklin Roosevelt, ignored citizens’ charges of election fraud and didn’t respond.

Lill Coker, daughter of Dr. Horace Thomas, one of the veterans who gathered with others in Athens, witnessed what unfolded.

Her father gave Lill permission to go on the roof of their home and watch the events unfold from afar. She listened to the local radio station, WLAR, which was located across the street from the jail, and recollected the radio announcer broadcasting from under his desk to avoid the bullets whizzing through his studio.

The “Battle of Athens” pitted Lill’s father and other veterans against more than 200 “sheriff’s deputies” — agents of Sheriff Pat Mansfield and his predecessor, wealthy state Sen. Paul Cantrell – both benefactors of a corrupt statewide Democrat political machine controlled by E.H. “Boss” Crump from Memphis.

In order to ensure the election and re-election of politicians running that machine, Mansfield and Cantrell had their cronies rig the ballot boxes in Athens, thus undermining the most basic expression of liberty in our constitutional republic — the vote.

By 1946, these veterans conspired to challenge the Cantrell/Mansfield corruption machine, and qualified themselves for several posts on the upcoming election ballot. Again attempting to ensure honest elections, they petitioned the FBI to send election monitors.

Again, they were ignored.

On Election Day, Aug. 1, 1946, the 200 “deputies” arrived to ensure the election results. They ejected the veterans from polling sites, and in one instance a ‘deputy’ pointed his gun at them as they attempted to re-enter a poll and shouted, “If you cross this street, I’ll kill you!”

Mansfield arrested one GI poll watcher, Walter Ellis, who insisted on monitoring polling in the courthouse. One black voter, Tom Gillespie, was shot and killed after a confrontation with a Mansfield “deputy” who denied him the right to vote.

After a long day of disputes, Mansfield and about 50 of his men took the ballot boxes to the county jail —- “for protection.”

The veterans were determined this election wouldn’t fall to the same corruption that had undermined the previous three elections. In the early evening, those who had been ejected as poll watchers mustered up some fellow vets. Being short of arms and ammunition sufficient to challenge Mansfield’s crew and retrieve the ballot boxes, they “borrowed” keys to the local National and State Guard armories and requisitioned three M-1 rifles, five Colt .45 pistols and 24 British Enfield rifles.

The vets went to the jail, where they offered the deputies safe exit if they would turn over the ballot boxes. The deputies declined and shot two of the vets. The GIs returned fire in a pitched gunfight that would continue into the early morning hours, when a number of vets from neighboring Meigs County improvised explosive devices (baled dynamite sticks) onto the jail’s porch in order to “soften up” the resolve of the occupants.

Shortly, the deputies surrendered and the GIs secured the building and ballots. Cantrell and Mansfield abandoned their “deputies” and left town early in the battle.

The veterans delivered this message to the radio announcer at WLAR: “The GI election officials went to the polls unarmed to have a fair election, as Pat Mansfield promised. They were met with blackjacks and pistols. Several GI officials were beaten and the ballot boxes were moved to the jail. The GI supporters went to the jail to get these ballot boxes and were met by gunfire. The GI candidates had promised that the votes would be counted as cast. They had no choice but to meet fire with fire. In the precincts where the GI candidates were allowed watchers they led by three to one majorities.”

The following morning, the armory weapons were cleaned and returned, and the ballot boxes were turned over for a legitimate count, where the GI candidate, Knox Henry, was elected sheriff of McMinn County. Three other vets filled key county positions.

In order to thwart future corruption, the town of Athens formed a new police force. In the decade that followed, the McMinn County reforms were adopted in many other counties across the state.

Lill Coker said, “I’m proud of all the veterans and my father taking a stand and doing what had to be done to make sure law was restored. They had to go against those who were supposed to be upholding law and order. The vets had gone to fight for liberty in World War II and came home to find a political machine robbing their fellow citizens of their rights. We can lose our freedom just as the people of Athens did during the war years when no one stood up to the sheriff’s bullies at the polling places.”

The Battle of Athens, Tennessee, was much more than a gunfight between small-town political factions. As historian Dan Daley wrote, “…it was a violent but decisive clash of two social and political cultures, between the past and the future of rural, state, and ultimately the federal government, and a reconfirmation of the deeply ingrained ideal that Americans can still assert themselves against tyranny, even when it is taking place in their own backyard.”