The
Bonus Army was the popular name of an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000
World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in
Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Its organizers called it the
Bonus Expeditionary Force to echo the name of World War I's
American Expeditionary Forces, while the media called it the
Bonus March. It was led by
Walter W. Waters, a former army sergeant.