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During the Great Depression thousands of hungry and disgruntled veterans of the First World War marched on Washington, D.C., demanding that Congress pay early the bonus for their military service that was scheduled for disbursement in 1945. Spontaneously banding together, unemployed Oregon cannery workers were joined by more than 20,000 men from across the nation to form the Bonus Expeditionary Force. The largest rally up to that time in the nation’s capital, it lasted more than ten weeks. The men refused to disperse, and the frustrated Hoover administration finally cleared the capital of the protesters with federal troops.
Although the Bonus March occurred more than 70 years ago, the story yields relevant points for today’s leaders. The climactic use of federal troops to break up the assembled mob of veterans represented a failure of the political and military establishment to understand the nature of the gathering, and the public relations fiasco that followed stained the reputation of the U.S. Army and cost the President reelection.
At the time of this writing American forces are faced with rebuilding nations, where riots and demonstrations may certainly occur. Employment of these forces in homeland security operations, in civil disturbances or in response to natural or man-made calamities is a probability. American leaders will face these missions in the foreseeable future, and learning lessons from the Bonus March may well prevent another disaster.