May 4, 1970 - four dead in ohio

Kent State prior to 5/4/70





NO MORE WAR!!!!!
View attachment 44981

 

WHAT THE HELL!!!!????

 

I'm not an old hippie but...my heart goes out to all whose live were touched by the incedent at Kent. I know the sadness I feel towards what happened must be much more intense for those who lived it.

 

A dark day in our history..

Love
sidney

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6aaaJBAv0"]YouTube- Niel Young Ohio Lyrics

 

BOWED BUT NOT BROKEN!!

 

Survivors ----

 

How many millions died because of that God Damned War??

 

No one knows for sure. But I believe the best estimates are at least three or four million deaths, counting civilian as well as military, and both North and South Vietnam.

 

As with most of the events outside of my immediate sphere of New Orleans at that time, I was not aware of it going down. Didn't own a TV and rarely read the mainstream newspapers. It may have been in the underground NOLA Express, but I just don't remember it. Years later I learned the sad history.

We were against the war, but most of the ppl I associated with were off the draft radar. Guess college students were the main target for the slave army, hence the protests on campuses.

Still a dark day for our nation to have armed military killing young ppl in protest. But it was a dark day for all the young men sent to kill and die in that unnecessary war and this sorta brought it home. In a way these four were also our honored war dead.

 

The killing of 4 students, innocent of any crime, is a travesty in itself. Someone should have been punished for this horrific "crime". Be assured, someone was responsible.

But on broader scale - the greater travesty is the introduction of armed US soldiers onto a college campus. There was no real danger of loss of life or widespread destruction - nothing the campus and city police could not have handled. And yet, solders with live ammunition were sent in. Green weekend warriors with little crowd control training. This is so reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. American troops being used against American student at a location whose very purpose is free thinking and challenging tired, old ideas.
Could this happen again - In the words of a former VP candidate "You Betcha -wink, wink".
Challenge the powers that be and they will attempt to crush you in order to retain their control - be it in the corporate world or in government. Fortunately, this incident did not kill the movement which went on to force the old guard out of Vietnam.
Unfortunately, the new guard is the same as the old guard.
Raise your voices and your fist "new generation". And perhaps some of the spirit that made the 60's and 70's so amazing will rest on you.

 

It was indeed a terrible travesty and tragedy. An investigation was conducted and many lawsuits were brought by the families of the four dead and nine wounded students, but no one was ever punished.

As for who was responsible, the soldiers who fired their rifles themselves claim they never heard an order to fire. A Kent State student later produced an audio recording he claimed contained a shouted order to fire, but to my understanding the recording has never been authenticated.

So the question of why the soldiers began firing at an unarmed group of people without a clear order has never been answered. As I recall, it was determined that a dozen or more soldiers actually fired 60-some bullets in the direction of the main crowd of students. It's hard not to conclude that the Guardsmen began firing on their own authority in response to the verbal taunting and rock-throwing by the students.

Some apologists for the National Guard claimed that there was a sniper who fired on the soldiers first, but that was quickly discredited.

True. Looking back, it's hard to understand what on earth the authorities were thinking, beginning with Governor Rhodes of Ohio, even though a belligerent precedent for campus confrontations had already been set by Ronald Reagan in California. Rhodes' response was more of anger and "we'll show those damn hippies" than it was a reasoned attempt to prevent damage or casualties.

I recall many people at the time being of the opinion that this type of confrontation was inevitable.

Rhodes deployed hundreds of soldiers who were poorly trained in crowd control, and who became dispersed and confused as to their role as the demonstration wore on.

Arming them with live ammunition and bayonets was a terrible example of over-response. At first, they used tear gas in their attempts to break up the demonstration, but when the students began throwing the cannisters back, the soldiers were left with no other course of action. That's terrible planning and organization.

As the saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Well, that's debatable. We have to face the fact that the students were not entirely innocent. They had already set the ROTC building on fire, and then interfered with the fire department when they tried to extinguish the fire.

Several people had also been hurt in minor skirmishes near the campus in the days leading up to May 4. That was why the mayor of the town of Kent had requested the National Guard in the first place. He was afraid the local police would not be able to handle the unrest. As it turned out, he was correct, as far as that went.

Nonetheless, that does not excuse for a second the use of deadly force. But if there was any good to come from the tragedy, it was that new methods of crowd control were introduced all over the US. And as far as I know, armed soldiers were never again deployed on a university campus in the United States.

The tragedy also served as a rallying point for subsequent anti-war demonstrations, as well it should have.

In hindsight, the terrible events at Kent State showed what happens when anger and belligerence replace dialogue and respect. They also showed that for chrissake you don't send armed soldiers into a situation unless you expect them to use their weapons.

They also showed that burning down buildings is not the way to change the system. To stop the Vietnam War, you vote out the bastards who are conducting it, which is eventually what we did.

When you talk about destruction,
Don't you know that you can count me out ...

 

Thanks for your clear and reasonable analysis of the tragedy. Very well thought out. We agree on almost every point.

 

To me another bone of contention is in the years following the memorial that was placed on the site got removed so they could build a sports complex.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

Thanks for posting this. Good to see others are still aware of and thinking about Kent State 40 years later. This was a life-changing event for me at the end of my third year in college. I was thinking about it all day yesterday while a lot of other people I know were preparing for "Cinco de Mayo." Peace.

 

Once again the time nears for remembering thosed mowed down on May 4th, 1970 at Kent State University. Those of us who lived through that era grow old - will the memory pass with us. I hope not. Things are no different today in that if you raise your hand against the man - he may cut it off if he choses. So Sad.

 

I don't understand how the government thought it could get away with this. I would love to hear the reasoning of the person who gave orders that day. It blows my mind that such a thing could even happen.

Yet, I think today, more than ever this kind of behaviour from the government (military, police, etc.) would be likely if something actually jarred people enough to make them react to an event in large numbers.

 

that song(ohio) touches me more deeply every time i listen to it. i weep every time i hear it. those who caught a bullet at kent state were just as much victims as the little vietnamese kids caught in the middle of the conflict itself. imourned then and i still mourn today. paisley skye.