If you haven’t heard, there is going to be another Bonus Army march on Washington. This time we’re fighting for the bonuses we vets deserve and to protest the $480 million in cuts made to veterans’ benefits and I’m going to be there! A group of us have decided to go up to DC as part of the Veterans Expeditionary Force (VEF), led by Emanuel Levin. There are rumors we’ll be staying at Fort Hunt, not the campgrounds where the Army was last year. Maybe this upgrade means they are going to take the veterans seriously this year. Since last year the Bonus Army split over ideological differences, so the other group coming is the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF).

Here is some footage of the Bonus Army March on Washington from last year

My wife is awful nervous after the battle that ensued last year between the government and the Bonus Army. The Bonus Army had set themselves up in an organized Hooverville, with laid out streets and designated areas for feeding and latrines. (We were in the army after all, so we know how to organize!) They were trying to convince Congress to give them their bonuses immediately when the Attorney General ordered their removal. The vets resisted the police’s attempts to remove them and two men were shot. Then Hoover used the Army to force the evacuation of the veterans, which is when it got uglier than the southbound side of a northbound donkey because General MacArthur ordered an attack on the veterans believing their action was a communist plot. I hope that FDR has learned from Hoover’s mistakes. Judging from his radio addresses to the nation, he is much more in tune with the concerns of the people.