A veteran of the Mexican Border Campaign, CPT Smith was wounded by a German bayonet while leading his combat infantry command during the hand-to-hand and trench warfare of World War I. In World War II he landed on Omaha Beach with the 635th Tank Destroyer Battalion he had organized and trained, and later successfully held one sector against the Germans' final drive in the Battle of the Bulge.

BG Smith was chosen as the first superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol, and in January of 1947, he began his first of fourteen years as the Representative of the Sixth Congressional District of Kansas, in the United States House of Representatives. As a citizen and soldier he demonstrated a keen sense of duty to be right and to act for the good of the people.