This led veterans to march on Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, at the very time when these bonds came due and were needed the most, the country collapsed into the Great Depression. Veterans, feeling abandoned by the government that they served and supported, increasingly argued for Congress to assist with their welfare, finally achieving passage of a post-dated bonus bond in 1924. There was also societal and political unrest with the First Red Scare, labor agitations and violent race riots. The majority of women federally gained the right to vote through the 19 th Amendment ratified in 1920 additionally, many women were not eager to abandon the economic and social freedoms enjoyed during the war. Prohibition, criminalizing the sale of alcohol, was in effect nationwide after decades of advocating by various temperance groups. The home that soldiers returned to was quite different than the one they left in 1917-1918. The last American combat units finally left France in September 1919, but it took another six months before all American soldiers on the Western Front returned home. Special recreation activities-including the summer 1919 Inter-Allied Games-were put in place to keep restless soldiers active, though that did not quell all discord. Men anxious for home were held at hastily constructed debarkation centers near French ports, awaiting ship transports that would carry them back to the United States.

Army began demobilizing units located beyond the front lines before those who fought in combat on the Western Front. had to demobilize its military, in the middle of the Influenza Pandemic, without efficient planning. The unexpected conclusion of the war-the Allies had war plans extending into 1919-meant that the U.S. When World War I ended in 1918, the United States had over four million men in uniform, half of which were overseas as part of the American Expeditionary Forces.

Going Home by A. American