On July 28, 1932, District police shot and killed William Hushka and mortally wounded Eric Carlson. William immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. When America entered World War I in 1917, he joined the Army. Eric came from Oakland and fought in the trenches in France. Both veterans are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1932, William and Eric were just two former enlisted men, now out of work. They were joined by 17,000 fellow veterans and 27,000 others marching on the Capitol building, demanding early payment of their wartime military bonus. The practice of compensating soldiers and sailors for the money they’d lost serving their country dates back to 1776. The veterans called their march on the Capitol the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), a reference to the American Expeditionary Force they had fought for in World War I. The veterans’ BEF later became known as the Bonus Army. It wasn’t a bonus, but payments owed for lost wages. Wages both veterans and their families desperately needed.

The money William and Eric demanded was approved in a law passed in 1924. Unfortunately for William and Eric, their payments would not come until 1945. Veterans would receive their money twenty-eight years after their service in the Great War, which was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Of course, the 1924 law contained a clause that guaranteed veterans early payment in cases where they died. Someone began calling this the tombstone bonus. By 1932, these 17,000 veterans were out of work, along with over 12 million of their fellow citizens. In 1929, the Great Depression had replaced the Great War.

Opposed by the Washington DC police commissioner, other city officials felt their local police needed help protecting the Capital and the feckless congressmen cowering inside. They requested federal troops to disperse the “Bonus Army.” President Hoover agreed. Veterans who fought in World War I were now confronted by the Army they’d served. The Army’s chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, along with his aide, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, answered the call. And answered the call they did, with mounted cavalry, infantry, tanks, and machine guns. The soldiers fixed bayonets as Major George Patton led the 3rd Cavalry, his saber drawn. The soldiers lobbed tear gas into the crowd.

The Army forced the marchers to retreat across the Anacostia River to the makeshift shanty town they’d constructed in the mud flats along the bank. MacArthur followed them and ordered their tents and cardboard shacks burned. It was a decisive victory for our active-duty military.

Yet, the “optics” of the victory over the Bonus Army proved horrible, and in November, Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt in a landslide.

Roosevelt opposed paying bonuses to the veterans. He had over 12 million citizens unemployed. The best he could offer was an executive order allowing 25,000 veterans to join his newly created Civilian Conservation Corps. Our veterans would not receive a bonus until 1936, when Congress passed the Adjusted Compensation Payment Act, authorizing the payment of $2 billion in World War I bonuses.

It took a Democratic-controlled House and Senate to override FDR’s veto.

On June 14, 2025, a military parade will take place in Washington. I’m just glad General MacArthur won’t lead it.