friend, of course.” But, after marching up Pennsylvania Avenue, MacArthur's soldiers lobbed tear
gas and brandished bayonets as they set fire to some of the tents. In a flash, the whole BEF
encampment was ablaze.
“Disregarding orders — a common thread running through his career — MacArthur decided to finish
the job by destroying the Bonus Army entirely,” Kenneth C. Davis writes. “After nightfall, the tanks
and cavalry leveled the jumbled camps of tents and packing-crate shacks. It was put to the torch.”
Two veterans lost their lives in the assault and an eleven-week-old baby died from what
was believed to be gas-related illness. In addition, an eight-year-old boy was partially
blinded by gas, two policemen had their skulls fractured, and a thousand veterans suffered
gas-related injuries.
After this impressive military success, the members of the Bonus Army were forced to leave
Washington and many of them joined the other two million or so Americans who lived their lives
on the road during the Great Depression.
“Some states, like California,” Davis notes, “posted guards to turn back the poor.”
Less than ten years later, MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower would be earning a place in history
books by sending many of those same disenfranchised poor to grisly deaths on the battlefields of
Europe and the Pacific. Meanwhile, the spirit of the Bonus Army lives on not only in the G.I. Bill of
1944 but in every sit-down strike, every march, and every demonstration for economic justice.
gas and brandished bayonets as they set fire to some of the tents. In a flash, the whole BEF
encampment was ablaze.
“Disregarding orders — a common thread running through his career — MacArthur decided to finish
the job by destroying the Bonus Army entirely,” Kenneth C. Davis writes. “After nightfall, the tanks
and cavalry leveled the jumbled camps of tents and packing-crate shacks. It was put to the torch.”
Two veterans lost their lives in the assault and an eleven-week-old baby died from what
was believed to be gas-related illness. In addition, an eight-year-old boy was partially
blinded by gas, two policemen had their skulls fractured, and a thousand veterans suffered
gas-related injuries.
After this impressive military success, the members of the Bonus Army were forced to leave
Washington and many of them joined the other two million or so Americans who lived their lives
on the road during the Great Depression.
“Some states, like California,” Davis notes, “posted guards to turn back the poor.”
Less than ten years later, MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower would be earning a place in history
books by sending many of those same disenfranchised poor to grisly deaths on the battlefields of
Europe and the Pacific. Meanwhile, the spirit of the Bonus Army lives on not only in the G.I. Bill of
1944 but in every sit-down strike, every march, and every demonstration for economic justice.
59
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SUPPOSED TO KNOW
SUPPOSED TO KNOW