At the height of the Great Depression, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans’ bonus certificates, arrive in Washington, D.C. One month later, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation’s capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong, most of them unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans’ payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.
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While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters’ trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, to evict them forcibly. MacArthur’s men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation’s many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.
The Military had no qualms about attacking civilians when ordered to, even their fellow war veterans. They were given orders and they followed them. That’s what makes soldiers soldiers, the following of orders without question.
Just in case you are of a mind to believe the military will somehow disobey orders to do the same today as they did then if ordered to to enforce some unpopular law on the civilian population. A myth I hear repeated frequently among those who don’t want to face the reality of the world we live in.
Agreed. Blind loyalty and obedience training, if not already ingrained by 12 years of government schooling, are the primary purpose of boot camp.
These events should be very instructive lessons and a dose of hard reality to those suckers and slaves who like to refer to “our” government. It’s not and hasn’t been for a long time, if ever. It’s THEIR government and when they tire of the democrazy scam they just reach out and crush the gnats pestering them, like those poor fools who risked life and limb fighting the ‘war to end all wars’. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, using much more force than was used against these poor saps. There’s a stiff penalty to pay for denying reality.
Vote, my ass.