44th aniversary of the Kent State shootings

It one of those events that won't sink in for me. Seems too preposterous. I mean, I know it happened, but I can't feel it because there's no mental shelf to put it on.

It's odd what sticks in the brain.

I was 20, in college, and busy keeping my head down. Even though my college was more interested in partying than protesting, my Dad was doing a year on the ground in Viet Nam at the time. I did not make it common knowledge that he was career military.

MM

I was 23, a veteran, back to college, and for two or three days I walked through demonstrations and/or tear gas (not Kent Sate) to go to classes (those that were still being held), while watching students throw rocks at the police protecting the school property. I had friends on both sides of those lines, both cops and protesters. No shots were fired. None of those friends died.

When I graduated, my advisers suggested I leave my military experience off my resume, as it might be considered a negative to a potential future employer.

God bless America.

Kent State was horrific. So was the treatment of our veterans when they returned home.

Haggis said:

Kent State was horrific. So was the treatment of our veterans when they returned home.

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And so was the treatment of the service men and women's families while their loved ones were in harm's way. Not to the same extent, but still very hurtful. All of our military friends had unlisted phone numbers. Otherwise you could get nasty calls in the middle of the night.

But not every one was like that. I remember answering the phone one day, it was an operator asking if I would accept a collect call from Barry Goldwater in Phoenix (we were in Tucson). I knew what that meant, and said yes, and it was actually him. Within a couple of minutes we were talking with my Dad. BG was a ham radio operator. And he made his equipment, which was located at his home, available 24/7 to relay calls from service men to their families. I had occassion to meet one of his daughters many years later. I told her how much it meant to us, and how much we appreciated what he did. She was very pleased.

MM

Hard to believe it was that long ago. And for many, if not most, it's nothing but a bit of history, like the Battle of Bunker Hill.

At the time, for some of us it did seem like the country was devolving into a police state.

"Step out of line, the Man come and take you away."

We all accepted that as a reality, a fact of life. We believed it was a rearguard against change, and we would surely prevail in the end.

But when you no longer had to worry so much about being arrested, but could simply be shot where you stood, it felt very different.

Haggis said:

I had friends on both sides of those lines, both cops and protesters.

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I was on both sides of the riot lines at different points in my life.

Chicago, 1968 -- what has been termed a police riot, and which was actually very close to that.

Then, a decade later, manning police lines against Iranian students protesting the Shah.

But we didn't shoot anyone. Or beat anyone. And I learned a lot about proper riot control.

Of course, properly handling five hundred protesters is a lot different that five or ten thousand.

What a wonderful story, MaryMumsy, and what a beautiful thing for Barry Goldwater to have done.

Hard to understand why anyone would blame those who fought the war, who were drafted into the war, many of whom were only there because they too poor to go to college if no reason than to get the deferment.

I'd joined the Wisconsin National Guard about 6 weeks before Kent State- it was either that or be drafted the next month- and wondered what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

Luckily, over the next 6 years, I never got called up for duty other than monthly meetings and annual summer camp.

I may have a perspective on this event unique to the discussion: I was serving in the Army in Vietnam when it happened.

It made me, and many others, wonder if coming home would be worthwhile. At that moment, Vietnam seemed saner.

caw

High school graduation was just weeks away for me. In retrospect, I can say that the Kent State Massacre was the single most radicalizing event of my entire life. I led a walkout in response to the murders at Kent State that damned near cost me my diploma, my family, and my still-spotless police record.

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 cutting 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?

-- Neil Young

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This video version includes a montage of images that brings the event home for those who don't remember it with the startling clarity of a child of the 60s.

This article from four years ago gives details that weren't known for decades.


Don't ever, for one moment, believe it can't happen here.

It already has.


(Note: Most of this retreaded from a post I made concerning the brutality going on during the Occupy movement.)

RichardGarfinkle said:

I was 8 at the time, not really cogniscent of what had happened, so I can't answer from direcf experience. So this is a more general answer.

It can be very hard for people to believe that other people of good conscience can come to opposite conclusions in moral decisions.

During WWI and WWII there was a common belief that conscientious objectors were really cowards. They suffered a great deal of abuse for their moral decisions, because they went agsinst the prevailing social conscience.

During the Vietnam war prevailing social conscience was in flux, and there was a great deal of ill will directed on all sides. Few people seem to have been willing to consider the choices others made as possible reflective of a moral position.

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But they were drafted for the most part, right? And the ones who were drafted only were so because they weren't in college. Hate the war, but not the soldier. I hate the two most recent wars we got ourselves into. Even Afghanistan, though we had to do something. about 911. But the scale of what we did, and the fact that early in that war we had Bin Laden cornered, and back-up was requested to finish the job, but that back-up never came. I would love to provide a link on this, but I've looked before and can't find the video interview I saw I believe on CNN, of a military intelligence officer- I'm pretty sure he was the one who made the request but for certain he was there- and he still looked incredulous that they had OBL and his not so merry men pinned down and no one seemed to be interested. I think the reason wars in recent history last as long as they do is because protracted engagement is exactly what the military industrial complex wants. The longer the war, the larger the profit. The cost? That's somebody else's kid, American or not.

And even though there's no longer a draft and those who fought in the two most recent wars volunteered for service, I'd suggest they did so under false pretenses, at least in Iraq- Bush, Wolfowitz and company so successfully tying Iraq to 911. That, or the dismal job market that gives men and women of a certain age and lack of education and opportunities so very few options.

I was 13. That photo of the young woman kneeling over one of the dead students is forever etched in my memory.

RichardGarfinkle said:

You're reflecting the attitude that grew up post Vietnam. At the time, people were reacting in a more visceral less coherent fashion. America's consciousness of war changed during and after Vietnam. Vietnam created an opposition to warfare that runs parallel to an idea that war is the only way to deal with problems.

Soldiers were, for a long time, used by both sides in this conflict as symbols. We seem to finally be getting to the point of seeing people who serve in the military as human beings first and foremost.

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Makes sense. Thanks.

blacbird said:

I may have a perspective on this event unique to the discussion: I was serving in the Army in Vietnam when it happened.

It made me, and many others, wonder if coming home would be worthwhile. At that moment, Vietnam seemed saner.

caw

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I didn't serve in Vietnam. The Army, in their wisdom, sent me to Korea instead. But I was overseas when MLK and RFK were assassinated, and, yes, I shared those same feelings.

I was wondering if people believe that if there was still a draft in the US we would have seen the same kind of revolt over the past decade or so we saw during the Vietnam War, and if those protests would have been met with the same kind of force.

My answer is "yes" to the latter question. Not so sure about the first. Interesting to me is that the Vietnam protests were largely by college students (right?) who weren't going to go anyway. One thing they both seem to have in common is wars are still fought by the poor.

My guess is that these days the school administrators would refuse permission for the protest to take place, and the students would return to their classrooms, or the permissible "free speech zone" would be in a janitor's closet somewhere in the basement.

We never sought permission back then. I still don't understand how a protest can be a protest if it's approved by the administration in advance.

Don said:

My guess is that these days the school administrators would refuse permission for the protest to take place, and the students would return to their classrooms, or the permissible "free speech zone" would be in a janitor's closet somewhere in the basement.

We never sought permission back then. I still don't understand how a protest can be a protest if it's approved by the administration in advance.

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Interesting to me. But those protests didn't always take place on campus, did they? Just seems to me that if you can't or don't or won't protest then what recourse do you have? Also interesting to me- and I'm sure this wasn't always the case- but in Europe, England and France specifically, protests don't seem to be put down with the same force as they are here.

Maybe apples and bowling balls.

Drafts often do turn to riots. See the Conscription Crises of 1917 and 1944 in Canada, the Draft Riots in 1863, the Irish Conscription Crisis of 1918, the Chilembwe Uprising of 1915, and so on.

Xelebes said:

Drafts often do turn to riots. See the Conscription Crises of 1917 and 1944 in Canada, the Draft Riots in 1863, the Irish Conscription Crisis of 1918, the Chilembwe Uprising of 1915, and so on.

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Certainly a draft is a relatively dangerous way to recruit for the expansion of empire. Much better to use a state-controlled bank to tank the economy so that the disadvantaged have few other routes to financial security.

Which might be why we got rid of it down here. But then, you present people, young people, with an economy that's on life support, fewer and fewer career choices that will give them a chance at a life with a little bit of financial security and even a shade of dignity, the prospect of tens of 1000s of dollars in student loans for a job that may or may not be there when they get out, and a hitch in the military might seem like the best option.

I was attending a Catholic girl's school. It was our senior year and I and four of my friends were hitch hiking to Davenport, Iowa. We had rides all the way there. We hitched a lot and never had problems. I had a dress for graduation on layaway at a department store there. The dress is how we fixed the destination as Davenport and not Chicago. Then we went to Furrs (or Bishop's, can't remember which) Cafeteria for iced tea and strawberry pie. No cars allowed on campus--seems funny to say that now, but that was the way it was in those days. We girls could only get around by hitch hiking or taking the bus. Since Ted Bundy was only just getting started no one had any idea that folks killed folks serially. We did hitch in groups of 4 or 5 just in case but the worst thing that happened to any of us was the dreaded "fatherly" lecture from some dad who had a daughter our age.

Most of the girls in our school were from Chicago or the suburbs, a few were from the Quad cities. The hippie movement had taken the whole school by storm. Of course we dressed the part. It was like a fever--a good fever. We were going to change the world, stop the war, extinguish racism and demand our rightful place in society. Most of us were studying for nursing, secretarial jobs or teaching. There just wasn't much opportunity for girls in those days. Of that group we have a zoo vet, a surgical nurse for a dentist, a counselor and two teachers. We could have done more. We knew we could but no one was behind us. Girls in college was still a new trend.

As I remember our group was from Palatine, Chicago Heights, Skokie and Bettendorf. I was the only one from Kansas. We were wearing love beads, bell bottom jeans, braids and hats. I was wearing a boyfriends old ROTC shirt---the patches removed and replaced with peace signs. We were on our way home, when a sheriff from some small town in Illinois picked us up and hauled us to jail. His reasoning was that we were off campus agitators. He told us that there had been a shooting at a college in Ohio and it was all our fault and he hoped we dirty hippies were happy. In Korea, where he served during the war, girl children were routinely drowned. We should be thankful that men fought wars for us and stop being damned commies because only commies wanted to stop the war. War was damn good for the country and anyone who thought different should be shot!

We were outraged at this illogical and sexist reasoning-- don't know if we called it sexist back then, but we knew it was not fair. Our dads were all vets of WW2 and they would never drown us, commie or no. They didn't think war was so great, either. Roe told him that Korea was not even a real war and he had no business questioning the patriotism of the children of REAL soldiers. She told him that her dad had been a sea bee and dared him to call her dad and ask him which war was more real. (My own father was a marine who had seen plenty of action in WW2 but I was not so keen to have the sheriff call him.)

Roe was a small girl, 4'11 and weighed less than 100 pounds. It was always disturbing to her when adults did not take her seriously and she tended to over react. Her speech, while fiery and semi- logical, did not go over so well. He singled me out because I had profaned an army shirt. I said it was my boyfriend's old ROTC shirt and he profaned it first. I just added the beads. He said he could tell I was from out of state, come to Illinois to agitate, because of my "accent." I took umbrage. Western Kansas might be a weird place but we are all Amurikenz. To be smart I stopped speaking English and started speaking in Spanish. I told him my name was Panchita Villa and I had come over the border to shoot up his town and all the gringos in it.

In hindsight i can see that this only exacerbated the problem. We did see the inside of a cell but they didn't lock the door. We showed him what ID we had. Eventually he called our Dean of Women. About ten years ago my old roomies and I tried to remember the town. I wanted to say La Salle but they say we would have been going to Chicago if we passed La Salle. I had the dress in a bag with me, in the jail cell, so we were comig from Davenport. And La Salle is a bigger town. This town was really small.

Wherever it was, it was about thirty to forty minutes from our school in Clinton, Iowa. Sister showed up in the school station wagon, loaded us up and blistered our ears all the way home. It was a good old nunly ass chewing and it would have lasted longer if the ride had been longer. Anyone who has ever attended Catholic school has had a couple or three of these. Let me say this was the crown jewel in my personal crown of nunly ass rippings.

All we could say was "Yes Sister. No, Sister. Please don't call our dads, Sister." Guess we weren't the rebels we thought we were.
And neither were the kids who got shot. --s6