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Originally Posted by dedbr

Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed 4 students and wounded 9 at Kent State in Ohio. The students were protesting president Richard Nixons decision to invade Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War.

No one was convicted of the shooting, but years later the state payed a settlement to the victims and their families........

Lest we forget.....


Some Where In Ded Land................

Originally Posted by dedbr

Ya know, I don't really want to remember because this instilled in me a real fear of the government. I was only fourteen, but I remember being very aware that the government was lying to us and always had.....

I also remember how lost I felt.......How could they shoot college students for Christ's sake?


Some Where In Ded Land.............

Originally Posted by dedbr

Tro....



Uh, no. The gaurd had been on Campus for a couple of days before the incident. It was described to me as about twenty kids throwing rocks and the rest just going to class and shit. One of the gaurdsmen on the far end shot and the others thought they were being fired upon and responded, was the official story.

The real story is that alot of the older generation thought we should be exterminated if we disagreed with the government and it's actions. The words, "Commie, Fag, and Junkie" were applied to us youngsters with equal vigor. If you grew your hair too long, you were a fuckin' dirty hippie or worse.

Please let me try and put this time in perspective. Ohio in 1970 was a different place than the rest of the world. Southern Ohio was still very racist at this time. Crosses were burned several times during my later childhood. The only place you saw long hair was on women. It was still very clanish, too. Several old families lorded their wealth over the rest. I know that this is hard to imagine in todays time, but it was just a fact of life back then. In the previous six years and nine months, we had lost a president who was beloved, a civil rights leader who changed the world and the presidents beloved younger brother. We were fighting a war that was sometimes killing hundreds of our boy's a week, and we had just escalated that war.

I think everybody I know will say that this was the turning point in the anti-war effort. Everybody suddenly said, "Hey, it may be all right to kill some commies, but we don't need to be shooting college students."

It's really hard to get the feeling for this. If you didn't live at that time, you don't really know how it felt. I hope I never have to feel that way again.....

Lest I forget.....


Some Where In Ded Land...............

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

On Monday, May 4, a protest was scheduled to be held at noon, as had been planned three days earlier. University officials attempted to ban the gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets stating that the event was canceled. Despite this, an estimated 2,000 people gathered[14] on the university's Commons, near Taylor Hall. The protest began with the ringing of the campus's iron victory bell (which had historically been used to signal victories in football games) to signal the beginning of the rally, and the first protester began to speak.

Fearing that the situation might escalate into another violent protest, Companies A and C, 1/145th Infantry and Troop G of the 2/107th Armored Cavalry, Ohio ARNG, the units on the campus grounds, attempted to disperse the students. The legality of the dispersal was later debated at a subsequent wrongful death and injury trial. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that authorities did indeed have the right to disperse the crowd.

The dispersal process began late in the morning with a police official, riding in a Guard Jeep, approaching the students to read them an order to disperse or face arrest. The protesters pelted the Jeep with rocks, forcing it to retreat. One Guardsman was injured in the attack.

Just before noon, the Guard returned and again ordered the crowd to disperse. When they refused, the Guard used tear gas. Because of wind, the tear gas had little effect in dispersing the crowd, and some began a second rock attack with chants of "Pigs off campus!" The students threw the tear gas canisters back at the National Guardsmen. However they had put on gas masks upon first using tear gas.

When it was obvious the crowd was not going to disperse, a group of 77 National Guard troops from A Company and Troop G began to advance on the hundreds of protesters with bayonets fixed on their weapons. The guardsmen had little training in riot control. As the guardsmen advanced, the protesters retreated up and over Blanket Hill, heading out of The Commons area. Once over the hill, the students, in a loose group, moved northeast along the front of Taylor Hall, with some continuing toward a parking lot in front of Prentice Hall (slightly northeast of and perpendicular to Taylor Hall). The guardsmen pursued the protesters over the hill, but rather than veering left as the protesters had, they continued straight, heading down toward an athletic practice field enclosed by a chain link fence. Here they remained for about ten minutes, unsure of how to get out of the area short of retracing their entrance path (an action some guardsmen considered might be viewed as a retreat[improper synthesis?]). During this time, the bulk of the students were off to the left and front of the guardsmen, approximately 50 to 75 meters away, on the veranda of Taylor Hall. Others were scattered between Taylor Hall and the Prentice Hall parking lot, while still others, perhaps 35 or 40, were standing in the parking lot, or dispersing through the lot as had been previously ordered.