Iron Mike is the de facto name of various monuments commemorating servicemen of the United States military. The term "Iron Mike" is uniquely American slang used to refer to men who are especially tough, brave, and inspiring; it was originally a nautical term for a gyrocompass, used to keep a ship on an unwavering course. Because the use of the slang term was popular in the first half of the 20th century, many statues from that period acquired the Iron Mike nickname, and over the generations the artists' titles were largely forgotten. Even official military publications and classroom texts tend to prefer the nickname to the original titles.

Quantico, Virginia’s Iron Mike is officially titled Crusading for Right. It depicts a World War I Marine holding a 1903 Springfield rifle, wearing a pack with a bayonet.

At the end of the war, US Army General John J. Pershing commissioned the French sculptor Charles Raphaël Peyre (sometimes Raphael Charles, 1872—1949) to commemorate the service of the US Army’s "doughboys". The sculptor, unaware of the differences between the branches of service, used a Marine private as a model and included the Eagle, Globe and Anchor insignia on the helmet. When Pershing saw the finished product, he insisted that the insignia be removed. The artist would not allow his work to be censored, so the army declined to buy the statue.^{[citation needed]}

Finally, Marine Corps General Smedley Butler raised enough money to buy the statue and had it installed in front of the headquarters building at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. The statue was begun in 1918 and first exhibited at the Exposition des Beaux Arts of the Grand Palaise des Champs-Élysées, in Paris in May 1919. Marine Officers and Enlisted donated money to purchase the statue, and it was sited in front of the Base Headquarters, Building 1019, in Quantico, Virginia, some 75 miles from DC and a bit off the tourist trail. Three tablets were erected in the memory of the officers and men of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, 5th Regiment and 6th Regiment, United States Marines, "who gave their lives for their country in the World War in 1918" by the Thomas Roberts Reath, Marine Post No. 186, American Legion, on November 10, 1921. On December 8, 1921, the statue was dedicated.

Today, the original statue stands at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in front of Butler Hall, home of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command. A reproduction with the name "Iron Mike" on its pedestal stands in front of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.

The Iron Mike at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial at Belleau Wood battlefield is a bronze relief on granite, simply entitled The Marine Memorial. It was sculpted by Felix Weihs de Weldon, the artist who had earlier designed the giant Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The monument was erected in the heart of the forest to honor the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments of the 4th Marine Brigade which fought there for twenty days in June 1918. Dedicated on November 18, 1955, this Iron Mike is the only memorial in Europe dedicated solely to the United States Marines.

Below the statue is a commemorative plaque with a large Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. The plaque includes a brief history of the battle with text in both English and French. The four ton monolith of bon accord granite, the same as used in the base of the Marine Corps War Memorial, came from Karlshamn, Sweden. Together with the seven foot tall Marine with bayonet, admired by the senior French present at its dedication as "very powerful and forceful ... fully embodying the spirit of the Marines," and accompanying plaque, the monument weighs about 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg).

The battle was the bloodiest of the U.S. Marine Corps' history at that point and the 5th and 6th Regiments were awarded the French Fourragère and Croix de Guerre. Following the war, as noted on the plaque, the French government renamed the forest "Bois de la Brigade de Marine." Officiating at the monument's dedication ceremony was then Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., who had fought and was wounded at Belleau Wood 37 years earlier. Also in attendance, were three other Marine General Officers who had also fought at Belleau Wood. Together the four Generals, Shepherd, William A. Worton, Gerald C. Thomas, and Alfred H. Noble, made for a unique gathering of senior Marines in Europe.