On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote:
> http://www.isreview.org/issues/55/veterans.shtml

"anacostia" by the Hangdogs (by Matthew Grimm?)

We built our campfires down by the Potomac
Shouting distance from Hoover's door
Shared our stories of Flanders' bloody fields
Who we lost, who we killed and what we did it all for

Three hundred hungry men set out from Portland
By Washington, twenty thousand voices filled the air
All asking Hoover only just for what was owed us
A pittance to everything we left over there

Anacostia
MacArthur's coming to raze us to the ground
God damn old man'll never know all that went up
When he burned Anacostia down

Last day he sent the cavalry down Pennsylvania
Boys who might've been our brothers fifteen years ago
They say they're comin' cross to Anacostia tonight
And if you smell the tear gas, buddy, god, just keep your head down low

Today they called my grandson up for Vietnam
For democracy they say again but these days I don't know
I think I saw just what we fight for in MacArthur's eyes
Night he turned the bayonets around on his own

CHORUS
When he burned Anacostia down
When he burned Anacostia down
When he burned Anacostia down
Down
Down

from the article that Louis cites:
>Although the Bonus Army was defeated on the battlefield, they were victorious 
>in the long run. Not only did they win benefits for themselves, they also won 
>benefits for future generations of veterans. In 1944, Congress passed the 
>Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, which 
>paid for veterans’ college education, gave them one year of unemployment 
>benefits while they looked for work after being discharged, and extended 
>low-interest loans to help them buy homes and start their own businesses. With 
>18 million serving in the armed forces during World War Two, the ruling class 
>feared a repeat of the Bonus Army march on a much bigger scale. The bill made 
>“the American Dream” a reality for millions of working-class families.<

-- 
Jim Devine / "In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can
purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness." -- George Bernard Shaw
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