Remembering May 4 1970 The Kent State massacre. 4 dead, 9 wounded.

[L0oniX]

An excellent collection of pictures and information --> http://picasaweb.google.com/hruffner/KentStateUniversityMay141970#

I have had a lot of my posts deleted for being anti military. My anti military attitude stems from my high school days. I had friends come back from Vietnam who had changed so much and now hated society. My own cousin told me he was going to become a cop so he could "get back at society". I thought most people in my school were stupid because they were acting like everything was normal. They were making their plans for college, marriage and their future all of which I thought was stupid. It was stupid because who knew if you would make it through Vietnam alive and if you did what would you be like after you killed people over a policy. I dropped out of HS and ran away to live in Haight Ashbury to avoid registering for the draft. I knew I was not going to be forced to go over there and kill for some US government policy over communism. I would rather be put in jail or escape to Canada. I attended war protests. I finally got caught for being in CA underage and was sent back and ended up registering for the draft. I sought a CO but was turned down. I was rejected at the induction center because I had a criminal record for selling pot ...thank God for that.

I will never agree to any war because of policy. Defense of ones country should be just that ...defense. If another "country" attacks the US then I am all for attacking back and I am glad that there are people who will defend this country for that reason and that reason alone. Being used by our government for some war over a policy is IMO an abuse of those who have and are serving this country. Right now I don't know what the hell we are doing or who we are chasing but IMO we shouldn't have our military people over there. IMO getting Osama is a police matter and should have been from the beginning.

So here I am again protesting war and protesting the "IMO" improper and illegal use of our military. Now it is apparent that our government can use our military on us again because they removed the restrictions on doing that and so I am again reminded of the Kent State massacre. Will it happen again? Will our own military be used to control us with the threat of death? Right now nothing is happening in our society that calls for mass population control and I hope it stays that way but if we or a majority of us find ourselves out in the streets with no work, food or shelter, then what? I find it to be frightening and appalling that our own solders would shoot and kill our own people for any reason and especially those who desire peace. Because of Kent State and other reasons I will never trust the military or cops. So far no one who has been involved in an anti war protest has been killed by our own solders but we know it happened before and we should always remember that. We should remember and try to make sure it never happens again even if it means being anti military.

Remember the 9 young people who were shot and wounded and please remember and honor these 4 young people in the prime of their lives who were protesting war and killed by our military.

[Echo In Light]

1. K&R

[tuckessee]

2. Hardly anyone cares anymore.

Thirty plus years of revisionism has marginalized the Vietnam era anti-war protestors.

They were correct in their convictions and actions but since we have new, eerily similar wars to sell they have been forgotten or slandered.

Even on a liberal progressive site such as this posts calling Vietman War protestors and draft evaders cowards & traitors who should've been shot are not only left standing but generally go unchallenged.

[AngryOldDem]

6. I worked with a man who was there.

He was a journalism student and saw most of it firsthand. He never talked about it. Refused to. I can only imagine how he feels every year this day comes around.

We can never forget what happened.

K&R.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

20. Thomas Lough was there and went on to work with Project Censored

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081019/OBITS/810190390/1033/NEWS?Title=Thomas_Lough
Thomas Lough

Published: Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 4:44 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 6:43 a.m.
Thomas Lough

Thomas Stephens Lough, a longtime peace activist and sociology professor, was on the faculty at Ohio's Kent State University in May 1970 when the National Guard fired on students demonstrating there against the Vietnam War.

Four students died and at least nine were wounded, the bloodiest episode during the country's anti-war protests.

Soon after the shooting, Lough wrote to his students: "Kent's sorrow has become the nation's outrage, and you were there. Don't forget it."

Lough, who later taught six years at Sonoma State University and was a strong supporter of the university's Project Censored, died Oct. 11 of heart failure at a palliative care unit in Santa Rosa. He was 80.

snip.... (Go the the link to read it all)

edit to add another obituary link http://www.recordpub.com/news/no_byline_article/4450869

[dflprincess]

29. A few years ago I was with my mom at the grocery store and the carry out

asked the cashier how she thought she'd done on their history test that day. The cashier replied "Okay, but I couldn't remember the date of Kent State." - My first thought was History test???? Kent State is a current event!!!! Then I nearly shouted "May 4, 1970." And my poor mother looked at the cashier and said "Please don't get her started."

[Sequoia]

32. It is history.

This is the year 2009. It happened in 1970 so how can it be a "current event".

[dflprincess]

41. I was commenting on my age

and the shock that events that were once current for me are now being studied in history. Sooner or later it happens to all of us.

[Sequoia]

56. Right you are.

I was 15 at the time. Even then, I didn't hear much about it until years and years later.

[rtassi]

95. You must have been glued to "Happy Days" then ... It was pretty impossible

to miss ... I was also 15. To relegate it to "history" without understanding it relevance to today is ... well, why we are in the mess we are in.
rt

[Sequoia]

107. Happy Days wasn't even on then.

And I was in a boarding school with 2 tv channels. We did not even have newspapers to read. We kids were pretty cut off from the real world. The Civil Rights movement was going on when I first went to that school and we sure didn't hear about that either and we were in the south! I was so angry when I got older and found all that history had passed by under our nose and we were basically cut off from the world.

[Jennicut]

103. I studied Kent State in history class, and I am 33 now.

I remember being into the Doors in high school when I was about 17 and the teacher played "The Unknown Soldier" and I thought that was so cool a Doors song was being played in class (circa 1993).
It should not be forgotten. I think Vietnam had not only a direct impact on those who were young then but on their children as well. Vietnam is probably not as big of a deal for those who grew up after it and their children who are in their teens and twenties now. But for those of us in Gen X with Baby Boomer parents, we had parents who fought over there or whose parents were in the army at that time. My Dad joined at age 20 out of fear he would be drafted anyways. He never ended up going. He was lucky.
I have my own children now and they have seen Grandpa's military things and are curious. I don't think this will be forgotten.

[Baby Snooks]

70. Kent State: April 25, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042600872.html

This didn't seem to draw much attention but for those of us who remembered what happened before, it was a chilling reminder.

[L0oniX]

100. Jeeze ...cops still seem to love to shoot young people and what a sad way to ...

honor the May 4 1970 killings. They probably wish they could have used real bullets.

[Baby Snooks]

116. The reality of Ohio...

We forget that Ohio has always been "Republican-oriented" and probably always will be. Samuel Bush began the dynasty in Columbus.

My parents were from Columbus. I know it well. And try to forget as much of it as I can.

[RaleighNCDUer]

102. 1970 IS current events.

The Korean War is history. (For me, born in '53.)

[dflprincess]

117. Exactly

(I was born in '53 too)

[tucsonlib]

49. I Can Relate, Believe Me

I attended KSU from March, 1965 until April, 1970, when I emigrated to Canada. So although I wasn't there on the day of the shootings, I was present during all the events leading up to it.
A few years ago one of my twenty-something co-workers asked me about Kent State. I told her some of what I had experienced back then, and her verbatim response was, "Wow! You really lived history, didn't you!"

And I suppose I did, in a way. But despite that tragedy and all the others, it was a magical time to be alive. We really did wage a Revolution you know. There was a musical, artistic and literary renaissance. The birth of the modern environmental movement, women's rights movement, gay rights, and on and on.
True, we were often loud, arrogant and obnoxious. But most of all


WE WERE RIGHT!



:hippie:

[dflprincess]

68. That sounds familiar - several years ago one of nieces was shocked

to find out I was alive when Martin Luther King died and could remember where I was when I heard about it. I nearly smacked her, but controlled myself and threatend that she could find herself out of the will. I suppose I should have been flattered that she thought I wasn't old enough to remember such ancient history.

[nadinbrzezinski]

91. Much more recent event... a friend of ours

he was alive, but too young to remember, when the Challenger went up in smoke

It was eerie to realize... I was there

He truly wasn't

For me, and I was his age when it happened, the one that echoes across the years is Tlatelolco. 1968

[Sequoia]

110. Now, that I remember seeing on the news.

Sometimes I could actually watch the news !

[destes]

115. The American chicken

"True, we were often loud, arrogant and obnoxious. But most of all, WE WERE RIGHT!"

I turned 18 in 1970. I registered for the draft. It was a lottery by then. On the wall at the draft board was a poster of a peace symbol. Below it was written,"footprint of the American chicken." I remember that all the draft board was composed of WWII vets. You could tell. There was always something about WWII vets. The greatest generation? No way. They were scared of baby boomers.

I think the flower children were the greatest generation. A mark that generations since have failed to meet.

[L0oniX]

42. Only about 1/3 of Kent State students are participating in the remembrance events....

and another 20% would but are too busy to do so.
http://www.kentnewsnet.com/poll/index.cfm?event=displayPollResults

[reformedrethug]

80. My nephiew

attends Kent State and graduates this year, I have not had a chance to talk to him about this as I have not seen him since Christmas. Knowing him he will do his best to be involved, but at the same time he is in Architecture and he plans on going back for his Masters so he is pretty busy I would imagine.

I will have to ask him at his graduation party.

[gademocrat7]

3. K & R

[pleah]

4. K&R

[raccoon]

5. Off to Greatest with you. I'll never forget that day. nt

[Bill McBlueState]

7. K&R

[Bill McBlueState]

8. The Kent State student paper has quite a bit of coverage today

http://www.kentnewsnet.com

I have some experience with the Kent State student media, and while I can't speak for the individuals who are there at any one time, the organizations tend to handle the anniversaries with a lot of respect.

[L0oniX]

16. I highly recommend that everyone listen to the audio of Alan Frank who was there.

http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2009/05/04/News/Alan-Frank.i.Thought.ok.Im.Going.To.Die.Today.And.That.Was.It-3735506.shtml

[L0oniX]

45. Lots of interesting info at that link.

[lynnertic]

58. I wrote about the Kent State Massacre

here, when I was trying to write a 'protest song' column. I was explaining why the song was still relevant.
http://www.lynnertic.com/friday-protest-songs/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-ohio/

(Wow I used to put a lot more energy into my writing than I do now...)

[Duncan Grant]

9. Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming, we're finally on our own. K&R

:kick:

[DutchLiberal]

37. I didn't live through that period, nor do I live in the USA, but every time I hear that song...

... I imagine what it must have been like, and I get goosebumps. It seems so unreal that something like that would happen in a Western democracy. The thought is terrifying.

[northofdenali]

109. First thing that came to my mind.

I was 16 and had been involved in antiwar/pro-Constitution activities for 3 years by then. I still thank any and all Higher Powers for giving me the parents I got.

WE. WILL. NEVER. FORGET.

:kick: & R

[barbtries]

10. thanks for posting

i'm going through ruffner's photo album now. and crying. :cry: i was almost 15 years old at the time. it was all so remote.

[JohnnyLib2]

11. K & R

That was a terrible day and needs to be remembered.

[DebbieCDC]

12. Absolute day of shame for my home state

And to make it worse those morons turned around and re-elected the fucking governor who sent the Nat Guard into Kent State. :puke:

[struggle4progress]

13. Nobody really knows why those shots were fired. Two of the dead were simply walking by.

None of those killed were anywhere near the guardsmen when they were shot.

[L0oniX]

14. That makes it even worse ...not that the protestors deserved to be shot.

[rfranklin]

48. In Illinois, I remember that people made up all kinds of excuses...

and tried to blame the people shot.

"They all had VD."

"they were communists."

"They were all having sex with Negroes."

Et cetera. It just couldn't be that innocent people were murdered.

[Seldona]

93. I recall a documentary where some of the shooters involved

talked about being 'backed' into some sort of fence. It was readily apparent he was reaching for any justification for his actions from his demeanor. I wish I could remember the name of it. I believe I saw it on PBS. Most likely did, since little else is on in my home.

No matter what the true reasons are, there will never be justice for those that died that day. That sucks. If you're interested I am sure a search will turn it up. Extremely interesting hearing it from the horse's ass, err mouth. So to speak.

[classof56]

77. As a letter to the editor in the decidely red-neck town where I lived at the time stated:

"There are no innocent bystanders at a riot."

Yeah, I was shocked, too, but not surprised. The part of Oregon where I lived then was over-run with hippy-hating pro-war wackos. I suspect many of them are dead now. Sadly, I'm sure they never changed.

May the victims of that awful event be remembered well. And may they rest in peace.

Tired Old Cynic

[aikoaiko]

15. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

CSN&Y 1974 OHIO ----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCV7PobBqZk

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

[DutchLiberal]

38. So powerful. Even the guitar chords can move me to tears.

And I didn't even live through that period.

[Lilith Velkor]

108. I remember it as a lullaby.

My babysitter sang it to me when I was ~2. I didn't understand the lyrics - or why some grownups would glare at me if I hummed the melody - until I was about 12.

[Ocracoker16]

43. I wasn't alive then, but I have come to know it thrrough the song

I know I can only capture a little bit of the tragedy through the song, but even that little bit is heart wrenching.

[livetohike]

17. Allison Krause graduated from a rival high school in the

suburbs of Pittsburgh. I was a Senior in high school when this happened. There was a lot of local coverage of course and I cried for days.

[carlyhippy]

18. I remember that one, I was 7

I watched it on TV

[Critters2]

21. I remember it, too. I was 11. nt

[Ishoutandscream2]

19. Baby Boomers who gave their lives to end an unjust war

which led to the end of the military draft. All those bashers of Boomers need to take a good, hard look at this thread.

Thanks for your sacrifices. Thank you Boomers.

[L0oniX]

22. This should also be a reminder that some things won't change unless we all get out in the streets...

and protest like we did back then. I think it was Howard Zinn who said that nothing of real importance changed until enough people protested. He cited equal rights, womens rights to vote and the Vietnam war.

[valerief]

99. Back then, media covered protests. There's a blackout now. nt

[L0oniX]

44. Indeed. The KSM was a turning point and instrumental in the push for the end of the war.

The war didn't end because of a vote in congress. If people only had the guts to protest today like they did back then we would have a chance at getting single payer health care and it would bring an end to the banksters, lobbyists and the sell outs in congress. We could have ended the war in Iraq sooner and maybe even stop what's going on in Afghanistan.

[TuxedoKat]

119. Thanks.

Nice to see Boomers getting credit for something rather than getting bashed. I was a preteen when KS happened and it was pretty horrifying, mind-boggling to try and think that this happened.

[TuxedoKat]

120. Thanks.

Nice to see Boomers getting credit for something rather than getting bashed. I was a preteen when KS happened and it was pretty horrifying, mind-boggling to try and think that this happened.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. I remember the marquee at UCLA - "National Guard 4 - Students 0"

Yes. Our government really will shoot it's own people.

[Seldona]

86. I'd never heard that.

Horrible!

[HughBeaumont]

24. Bill Schroeder was from Lorain Ohio, about 10 minutes away from where I live.

Sandy Scheuer was a graduate of Boardman HS, about 20 minutes away from the city where I was born.

Allison Krause was from Silver Spring MD, where some of my family lives.

Small world, isn't it?

K & R.

[kwassa]

28. Where do you live? I was in Oberlin in May 1970 ...

and participated in major anti-war protests around that time.

I worked at US Steel in Lorain as a summer job in '73 while I was going to college.

many kids from our area were students at Kent State, and my high school girlfriend ended up going there. I visited her at school and saw the bullet holes through the sculpture ...

[HughBeaumont]

36. I was born in Youngstown, moved to Vermilion, then Avon Lake.

I was 9 months old when KSU happened.

My dad worked for US Steel/USX/Kobe for 37 years.

Lots of students from my cities went to Kent in the 80s/90s. Either that or BGSU was the other popular one.

I still go to Oberlin's Main Avenue and that candy shop and Ben Franklin's.

[OHDEM]

92. I was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio

I live about an hour from there now. My Dad graduated in 70 and knew people who were there. Later, he got lucky and got into the Nat'l Guard around the same time his number came up for the draft. But...because of Kent the Ohio Nat'l Guard couldn't have weapons (or was it just bullets?) He remembers being shot at during truckers strike.

I find it interesting that people talk about the protestors being a riot or bringing it on themselves as though this were a kegger that got out of hand. We were at war and men were being forced to go fight something they didn't believe. I wasn't there, but I know how my heart broke when we began the war in Iraq and it still aches. I can't imagine what it's like to watch a bunch of 19 year old BOYS forced to go half way around the world to fight an unknown enemy for an unknown cause. And that generation still bares the scars.

I wonder if people would be so "pro-war" if there was a draft now. They act like war is a game or something.

[Liberal In Texas]

25. ...

[Better Believe It]

26. Thanks for the post. Check out this video on Kent State

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x307654

[DWilliamsamh]

27. Tin Slodiers and Nixon's coming......4 dead in O-Hi-O (N/T)

[grantcart]

30. This video goes through the murders step by step

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkejULqgBgg&feature=player_embedded

[nichomachus]

31. And a special shout out to

all the people who repeat the lie that "American troops would never fire on their fellow citizens if ordered to."

You're wrong.

[JonLP24]

50. People say that? I guess they never heard of Esequiel Hernández Jr

A citizen mistaken for a illegal immigrant in the US-Mexico border war that was killed by a Marine.

[nichomachus]

55. Yes, they do say that, but this is a different case

Hernandez was mistaken for an undocumented alien. But when some people raise the issue of US troops being brought to the US to put down civil unrest, others claim that US troops would never ever fire on fellow citizens. They will, as soon as they are convinced that the fellow citizens are less than human -- maybe "liberals" or some other subhuman class. Once you've depersonalized any group, you can get the troops to fire on them.

[L0oniX]

62. Using troops to put down civil unrest is my nightmare. I totally believe they will shoot us ...

especially me since I still have very long hair which kinda makes me an obvious liberal and or "dirty hippie".

[wizstars]

33. K & R!!

Kent State is what opened my eyes politically--I will never forget it, or forgive those b@st@rds who murdered the KS4; or those who gave the orders

[endarkenment]

34. Seared indelibly on my brain. K&R.

I wish I could say 'never again' but alas, in my lifetime we have of course done it all over again. Another war of choice, another slaughter, another round of venal old men chasing dreams of empire.

[L0oniX]

35. The May 1970 Tragedy at Jackson State University. Think the police won't do the same thing???

For those who may think the police were not also shooting people back then check this out...
http://www.may41970.com/Jackson%20State/jackson_state_may_1970.htm

"police opened fire at approximately 12:05 a.m., May 15, and continued firing for more than 30 seconds"

"Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18-month-old son, lay dead 50 feet east of the west wing door of Alexander Hall"

"James Earl Green, 17, was sprawled dead in front of B. F. Roberts Dining Hall. Green, a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, was walking home from work at a local grocery store"

<snip> Twelve other Jackson State students were struck by gunfire, including at least one who was sitting in the dormitory lobby at the time of the shooting. Several students required treatment for hysteria and injuries from shattered glass. Injured and carried to University Hospital for treatment were Fonzie Coleman, Redd Wilson Jr. , Leroy Kenter, Vernon Steve Weakley, Gloria Mayhorn, Patricia Ann Sanders , Willie Woodard, Andrea Reese, Stella Spinks, Climmie Johnson, Tuwaine Davis and Lonzie Thompson.

[The Wizard]

97. The events at Jackson State

and Kent State were Nixon's solution to anti war college demonstrations. There were other campus anti war demonstrations that were met with government violence, but without the shootings.
And compared to today's Republicans, Nixon was a liberal.
Guess how Sarah Palin would address anti war demonstrations. That's why we have to discredit the Republicans at every turn. They are fascists without the military uniforms.
But I can imagine Sarah Palin in a field marshall's uniform and thigh high spiked heel boots. Then again, that's how the Freepers masturbating in their parent's basements envision her.

[Bluzmann57]

39. I was 12 years old at the time

And my parents, who were "simply" working class heroes had some heated discussions about it with some of the rednecks in our small town. See, my dad was in Korea and until that day he rarely talked about it except to say he drank a lot of whiskey while he was there. But from that day forward, he and my mom became avid anti Vietnam war people, even attending a protest in Iowa City shortly after the Kent State incident. They took me and my sister because we were too young to stay by ourselves and they wanted to make damn sure we got the message. We did.

[Bigmack]

40. I was still teaching History in the 1990s

at the HS level, and invariably the kids would read about Kent State in their Pablum textbook and some kid would idly ask why the National Guard fired on the protesters. It was a trap! I would always say... "Let's find out!" I bombed them with eyewitness accounts and some video. Then, when they got heated up a little, I'd have them debate. Nobody wanted to be on the side that held the shootings were justified, because there WAS no justification.

Radicalized my students a little, I am proud to say.

[Obamanaut]

46. I was in a Navy Airborne Early Warning Squadron, flying in and out

of Chu Lai and Da Nang, RVN. Don't know what I was doing that exact date however.

[H2O Man]

47. Thank you.

Nominated.

The photo below was taken by DU lurker/infrequent contributor, Mr. Baggins.

[L0oniX]

54. ...

:cry:

[stevedeshazer]

66. My friend Joseph Lewis was one of the wounded.

I knew him for years. He never told me.

He just moved on.

Later, he was moved to discuss it.

http://www.burr.kent.edu/archives/may4/shot/shot2.html

Joseph Lewis: Did Nothing Wrong

Two bullets entered their son, but Joseph Lewis' parents assumed the National Guard was in the right. The Massillon native was a freshman social work major and the youngest of those wounded at Kent State. One bullet entered just below his belt on his right side and exited on his left side around where his jeans pocket would be. The other bullet entered between the two bones in his lower leg about six inches above his ankle. Lewis nearly died from his injuries.

Lewis was taken to Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna. While he was in intensive care, his parents were upset for two reasons: first, because he had been shot and second, because they thought he had done something to deserve it.

"My parents were very upset because of what they were reading in the paper," Lewis says, adding that it took him a while to convince his parents that he had done nothing wrong.

In general, the local reaction to the May 4 shootings lowered Lewis' opinion of people in Kent and Ohio and ended his college career without a degree. After another quarter of classes, Lewis moved to Oregon in 1972 and still lives there in Scappoose, in the northwest corner of the state.

Lewis originally went to Oregon to visit a friend's brother. Discovering he liked it there, he found a place to live and a job.

[H2O Man]

69. Interesting.

I'm reminded of how there were many people who thought the students deserved what they got. Ronald Reagan was quoted in California as saying that "maybe a little bloodshed in the streets is needed."

Dr. Paul Williamson, of McComb, Mississippi, wrote a letter to his son, who had been outraged by the shootings. Nathan Williamson was a college student at the time, and was opposed to the war. In his letter, which he intended for media consumption, Dr. W wrote that not only would he expect his son to be shot if he participated in an "illegal activity" such as the campus anti-war rally, but that he and his wife would invite the person who killed their son out to dinner. Nice. The letter was published in a national medical journal, as well as in newspapers across the country.

Martin Scheuer, from Boardman, Ohio, countered with a beautiful tribute to his daughter, Sandy. "She was the most precious jewel in our life, she was everything we lived for, and now our lives are an empty shell," he wrote as the first line in the letter.

It was a terrible event. The reaction to it was also shocking.

[L0oniX]

72. Ronald Reagan said that? What a discusting POS.

Dr. Paul Williamson obviously never deserved to be a father.

[RaleighNCDUer]

106. Perhaps he was right but, typically, in the wrong way.

Jefferson said the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. The 'blood in the streets' had the same effect as the Boston Massacre - it galvanized the protests and made the middle class sit up and take notice. The blatant government repression seen at Kent State and at Jackson State ten days later moved everybody to the left - militants became revolutionaries (Weathermen), activists became militants (SDS), and the silent majority woke up.

All it took was the blood of innocents.

[L0oniX]

71. Amazing. What on earth could he have done to deserve being shot or killed?

That's the whole thing about it. No one stole a car or sold heroin and even then that wouldn't merit a death sentence. No one shot at the guard. Sure rocks were thrown and the guard were the only ones with helmets but is that enough to deserve being killed? For that matter, was anyone convicted of negligent homicide? What gets into a military service person that they would shoot unarmed Americans? Just following orders? Who the hell authorized using live ammo?

[stevedeshazer]

75. He flipped them off.

That was enough.

[FraDon]

51. thanks for this • k&r • memory from that day

I was 22, and an anti-war organizer. I got back to my apartment after a sympathy rally on campus, to find an urgent phone message to call my mother (she never called me). I reach her, fearing someone in my family had also died that day. She was in a panic to confirm I was OK.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I asked her. In her curious logic she said, "I knew you weren't one of the four dead, because they didn't call me. I was sure you were one of the wounded."

"Mom, Mom," I said, "That was Kent State. I go to Penn State."

"What?!"

"P. like peanut butter. Penn State. Kent State is in Ohio, Mom."


--- Oh what we put our parents through.

[csziggy]

85. My parents were frightened by Kent State - two girls in college

And a third (me) to start the next fall. And every damn one of us "free thinkers" likely to be in the middle of demonstrations! I know my parents had a lot of sleepless nights in the next few years.

[Seldona]

88. Thanks for sharing that wonderful memory of that horrible day.

Through the horror of that day, there is a mother's love. What a sweet-heart.

[MichiganVote]

52. ...And no one ever proposes that their names be placed on the VietNam memorial. But they should be.

[Ken Burch]

64. Eugene McCarthy once suggested there should be a monument for Vietnam War protesters

If there ever is such a monument, the names of the Kent State martyrs, alongside, of course, those of the Jackson State University students who were killed ten days later(and whose deaths are usually forgotten because they were African Americans)should be inscribed there in a place of honor.

[MichiganVote]

76. Agree.

[Beacool]

53. What a shame.

Such a waste of young lives. I was too young at the time. But I have read about it and seen documentaries on the subject.

Lousy war then, lousy war now.

:(

[Canuckistanian]

57. Here's a series of posts from DUer kainah in 2006

I had them in my bookmarks.

An excellent summation, with links:

Prelude to Kent State: Nixon Invades Cambodia
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=206676

Call in the National Guard: May 1-3, 1970, at Kent State
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=207279

"They Just Started Shooting Us Down" -- Kent State
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=207842

[WatchWhatISay]

59. I was younger than they back then

I am way older than they now

But the sadness at how senseless it was is still the same to me.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

60. I was a senior

at Texas Tech. Taking my last finals. Seems like yesterday:cry:

[regnaD kciN]

61. Excellent post...

I would only correct one point:

please remember and honor these 4 young people in the prime of their lives who were protesting war and killed by our military

Actually, only Krause and Miller were protesting the war. Sandy Scheuer was watching the protests as an onlooker some distance away. Bill Schroeder was an ROTC cadet who was walking from one class to another. Both of them merely had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[L0oniX]

63. I stand corrected.

[H2O Man]

65. "Kent State,"

James Michner's 1971 book on the events, is probably the single best source of information on it.

[omega minimo]

67. "4 dead in O hi o"

[Faygo Kid]

73. One week before, it was the first Earth Day. I remember, as a Frosh at Wayne State University.

Beautiful day. Golden retrievers with kerchiefs around their necks, and Frisbees flying everywhere.

Then, one week later, we got serious. We didn't get serious enough, and much later we didn't stop George W. Bush from his immoral and illegal war.

We should have done so. Damn.

[MadMaddie]

83. You and the others did what you could

You were fighting the right fight and you were right and they were wrong.

Your fight and our fight now is to break the back of the Neocon Repblik party now and forever. This is our chance to try to right history.
This is why we have to continue to fight for prosecutions for War Crimes...because if we don't the US will be doomed to groundhogs day.....

Thank you and others across the country for your fight then and thank you for your continued fight with us today!

[csziggy]

87. And this may be part of the answer to the other thread about why Boomers

Did not do more for the future. We all lived through the John Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King assassination, Robert Kennedy assassination, Kent State, other attacks on demonstrators, Watergate and the Noxin resignation.

We all had a form of PTSD. Many of us just wanted to have a quiet, normal life. Many have done what we could to make changes, but in a more gradual way. Maybe we could have done more, maybe we could have made a difference. It is hard to know but I look at what many have been trying to do since 2000 and think by then it was pissing into the wind.

And I saw the people of our generation that were out there in the streets working for the Obama campaign and I want their work to have given us and the future the hope that we need. Yes, a lot of young people worked on the campaign, but at least here, without the Boomers, there would not have been the organizing forces to get them out there.

[geiger]

74. as an alum with 2 degrees from Kent, remembering....

loving Kent....

[LuckyLib]

78. The book end of my undergraduate life. Senior year. My folks had two kids in college in CA.

Two more in high school. Everything we had protested against and fought against was illuminated by this action. It was a somber graduation a month later. My folks became liberal late in life -- in part because of Kent State.

[BlooInBloo]

79. RIP.

[madrchsod]

81. it was`t a good day for my generation

now the children and grand children of the vietnam veterans are fighting in two wars.

[Elwood P Dowd]

82. While traveling in South Georgia, I heard the news on my car radio.

When I got back to my little apartment that night, I watched the reports on CBS. I was almost 23, just out of college, and 1-A in the draft. They got me a few months later and took 2 years out of my life for that senseless war.

I was just a dumb-ass southern kid from Alabama who was slowly waking up to the total insanity going on in our country. Even though I listened to Pete Seeger and The Weavers, Peter, Paul, & Mary, and numerous other progressive folk or rock groups on my stereo, it took Kent State to wake up my sorry ass.

When Neil Young's 'Harvest' LP came out later, I purchased it simply because of the song about Kent State. My little Dual turntable must have played that Reprise album a thousand times before I upgraded to a Thorens.

[nevergiveup]

84. I too remember that day

I hated the war with such a passion that thinking about it today still makes me shiver. If you think the country is divided today you should have lived back then. There didn't seem to be anyone in the middle. People were either in the "America, love it or leave it" or the "hell no, I won't go" camp. On the day of Kent State a guy who I had up until then considered my friend told me "these kids had it coming to them". It was not a pleasant time to live in America.

[earcandle]

89. saved for revisit. wow. thanks. sad, who we have become in general.

We can clean this up.

[PufPuf23]

90. I hear you.

I was at the anti-war protests of SF and Berkeley as a teen 450 mi from my parents 1966-1970 going to school.

Off an ACT bus and teargassed within 15 minutes on Telegraph Ave.

I was there for Arlo Guthrie at the Marina Green over the Presidio 7(?)

Even though I had returned to rural Humboldt to finish high School on the Hupa Reservation my senior year, I registered in Martinez (Contra Costa) where I had been living because of the good record for non-religious COs.

There was a bias too. Virtually every one of my age in rural Humboldt, (Hoopa draft board) nearly half and half then (late 60s) Indians and loggers kids with some government and weirdos (me) thrown in the mix was drafted or given a choice of jail or Vietnam for some minor violation.

The rich kids I went to prep school with weren't drafted like the less fortunate rural kids.

I quit hunting to my parents distress (my grandparents had a fishing and hunting resort for 35+ years on the Klamath) and haven't hunted nor shot a gun recreational since (I have shot a gun shooting cones or scion wood from trees for science).

I burned my draft card.

My dad was an overage January 1942 volunteer and 8th grade grad that spent three years in Europe and made no mention of his war history except basic training in Cheyenne, WY and being stationed near Salisbury, England before France and Germany. He had a holiday in Stratford-on-Avon and went to Jack Dempsey's Bar his last evening in the USA.

I was #318 in the 2nd year of the lottery so my CO plans became irrelevant. I have a copy of the Draft Resistors Handbook still on a bookshelf.

There are friends that are essentially outlaws and not back from Vietnam in the mountains where we were raised.

The Vietnam War destroyed or greatly impacted much of the lives of close to 50% of the kids near my age in my small hometown.

Some of my slightly younger friends not of Vietnam age are happy their kids are in the military now as they see it as a way to learn skills and get out in the world.

War is such a harmful and de-humanizing waste.

[democrank]

94. A horrifying day I`ll never forget.

~PEACE~

[WillyT]

96. K & R !!!

:cry:

:kick:

[Soylent Brice]

98. thank you.

never forget.

[gblady]

101. it's one of those things....

you never forget.

I was a college Sr. in WA state.
Protesting the war by marching on the freeways.

I remember being devastated by this, shocked, outraged.
Filled with fury and disbelief...galvanized into action.

I actually broke up with my fiance over this...
he was antiwar, would make protest signs, but refused to march.

"I'm not going out there and get my brains blown out".
I had no empathy for what I saw at the time as cowardice.

We were greeted by hundreds of police in full riot gear.
Fortunately, it did not end in gunfire.

Still moves me to tears.

[bluescribbler]

104. That was the turning point for me

I was somewhere in the Pacific when I heard about it. Some of my older shipmates thought it was a great thing. "Kill them all", one of them said. I couldn't believe that. I thought we had sworn an oath "to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States." I thought that Constitution gave those students the rights. "peaceably to assemble", and "to petition the government for redress of grievances." I started to wonder what the hell was going on, that
American soldiers could shoot to kill American citizens.

We must never forget.

[WhiteTara]

105. I remember that day

It was the day that I knew my government was filled with evil people and I became radicalized. I marched and protested almost every day. We were fearless then and filled with the sense that we could change things. When I went to my first current era march, I and every other grey hair was marching and crying, nothing had changed.

[msedano]

111. 1970: equal opportunity killing.

Kent State.
Jackson State.
East Los Angeles.

4 whites.
4 blacks.
3 chicanos.

Lesson: protest the war and you die, AKA with us or agin us.

[L0oniX]

112. What was the East Los Angeles one about? info/links please.

[msedano]

113. August 29, 1970

Chicano Moratorium. 50,000 mass for a march from Belvedere Park to Laguna Park. Police rioted and, in a day-long crusade for blood, kill 14 year old Lyn Ward, Angel Diaz, and Ruben Salazar.

Here are some personal recollections shared by people who attended the rally:
http://www.networkaztlan.com/moratorium/NCMC_lts.html

Photos:
http://www.networkaztlan.com/moratorium/NCMC_photos2.html

[radfringe]

114. my partner hung out with Jeffrey Miller in High School

knew the family.

Jeff was walking across campus, heading to or from a class. Wasn't even part of the demonstration.

[H2O Man]

118. It was Bill Schroeder

who was walking to class.

Jeff Miller was participating in the demonstration. There are numerous photos documenting that.

[realisticphish]

121. The first problem was using untrained National Guardsmen instead of Police

the other problem... no wait, that's about it. Not that Police wouldn't have done violence, because we all know they might have, but they're at least law enforcement, not military. Theoretically trained to protect and control, not kill.

I'm a KSU grad student (though I'm not at the Kent, OH campus), and the university does a lot of remembrance stuff for it.

Though I do have an acquaintance from my high school who went there for undergrad. She told me that she and some other people from College Republicans thought it would be "funny" to send cartridge casings to one of the students who was injured in 1970. It took a lot not to punch her in the face