Kent State Shooting

Few people today realize what we were doing in Viet Nam. We were fighting "the Great Red Hoard". It was the current thinking at the time of the Viet Nam war that any country that became communist would surely become part of the Soviet Union. The loss of Cuba to the Communist U.S.S.R. was fresh in peoples minds. The United States had a policy of containment:
"Under President Harry Truman, the United States had established a foreign policy doctrine called "containment." Originated by George Kennan, Dean Acheson, and other diplomats and policy advisers, the policy of "containment" aimed not to fight an all out war with the communist Soviet Union, but rather to confine communism and the Soviet Union to their existing boundaries." - Michael O'Malley

We lived in total fear of the Soviet Union, we feared to confront them directly. The fear of Communist expansion was justified, in part by statements from Nikita Khrushchev like: "We will bury you!" and “we will take you over without firing a shot”. The Soviet philosophy was one that kept it's people trembling with fear. We had every reason to fear the Soviet Union. It was well known as a harsh and brutal regime. Khrushchev was much like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is today. He was openly contemptuous of the United States and was very up front about threatening us. The only difference between Khrushchev and Ahmadinejad is that Khrushchev was the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world. The soviet military was every much as powerful as the United States military. And… They had nukes… And they were willing to use them if we were to show a chink in our armor.


My great grandmother was a Seventh Day Adventist. She thumped on the Bible and prophesized: “Get yourself right with the lord. The Bible says that the world is going to end in fire” and that, “The end of the world is going to come out of the east”. As far as she was concerned, Russia was east. I knew that there was no doubt that my Great-Grandmother loved us kids, and if she told us that the world was soon going to end, we believed her. Before we went to bed at night she had us recite the Lord’s Prayer and when I got to the part where we said, “and if I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take”. I just knew that was a sign that I might even die that night. She called the atom bomb the “A-Tom bomb”. She knew how terrible the A-Tom bomb was, the two bombs dropped on Japan was still fresh in her old feeble mind. She was just doing what she thought that she needed to do to get us kids into heaven when the Russians dropped the A-tom bomb on us. Some day I'll tell you what I have against religion, but that's a post for another day.

Most of the kids in the fifties were terrified that they might die at any moment. They saw people building bomb shelters, and overheard the old folks talk endlessly about “The Commies” dropping bombs on us. We thought that it might happen at any minute. So, most of the older folks believed that we had to stop communist expansion at all costs.

We were in Viet Nam to make sure that the "commies" didn't take over. The old guard was adamant that we had to win the Viet Nam war no matter what it took to do. Not only did they not want to pull our troupes out, they felt that the war should be scaled up. They felt that we should move into Cambodia and any other place that it looked like the commies wanted to take over. That set the stage for the feelings that people had leading up to the Kent State shootings. The young people and the students didn't see the communist as being that much of a treat, and that we should stay within our borders, and the commies could have the rest of the world if they wanted it. They felt that we should only protect America against any "Direct Aggression". The idea was that, we should remain non-aggressive, and they would not harm us. The old soldiers were offended by such cowardice, and demanded our government do something about the cowards who objected to the Viet Nam war. It was much like the demonstrators of today, thinking that we should only answer direct threats, and that we should have stayed out of Iraq. Bushes actions were a lot like Nixon’s when he expanded the war.

In 1968 the students in Mexico were demonstrating against their government, demanding Democracy from the "Institutional Revolutionary Party" (PRI) had been in power since 1929. The Mexican government fired 15,000 bullets, they shot and killed from 150, to 350 students. The official number that the PRI admitted to was @40-50 students. "The Oct. 2, 1968 massacre of student demonstrators in Tlatelolco square in Mexico City have made it clear that the state was responsible. But not one person has been sentenced, and no one even knows exactly how many young protesters died." Ten days later Mexico City hosted the 1968 summer Olympics, which came off without a hitch. The student demonstrations were quelled, and there were no more demonstrations.

Many of the American Old-Guard pointed to the way that Mexico handled demonstrators, and asked if maybe the traitorous American students should be treated the same way. Some people seriously thought that maybe it would be a good solution to the student demonstrations. Others talked about how lucky Americans were that they were not treated like the Mexican students. At any way of thinking it was all fresh in everyone’s minds that the shooting of Mexican students solved "the problem".

It didn't help that politicians were jumping on the "Get Tough" band wagon and making wildly patriotic and threatening speeches about the demonstrations that were going on at Kent State.

On Thursday April 30th 1970. President Richard M. Nixon announced that the United States had launched an incursion into Cambodia.

On Friday May 1st , about 500 students demonstrated against the Viet Nam war, and Nixon’s incursion into Cambodia, on the grassy knoll at the center of the Kent State campus. One student buried a copy of the U.S. Constitution, another burned his draft card. These days that would go fairly unnoticed, but back then it was wildly unpatriotic and seriously offensive. The demonstration lasted well into the night. By midnight they were breaking windows and starting bonfires in the middle of the streets. Beer bottles were being thrown from bars, breaking windows and damaging cars.

On Saturday, May 2nd, a state of emergency was declared and Governor James A. Rhodes sent in the national Guard. When the guard got there, buildings were burning, and students were throwing rocks and preventing the firemen from putting the fires out. More than a thousand protestors were involved.

Sunday, May 3rd, Governor James A. Rhodes called the protesters un-American and referred to the protesters as revolutionaries set on destroying higher education in Ohio. "They're worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America." Those words were coming from someone with the stature of the Governor of Ohio!

Around 8:00 p.m., another rally was held on the campus Commons. By 8:45 p.m. the Guard used tear gas to disperse the crowd, and the students reassembled at the intersection of Lincoln and Main Streets, holding a sit-in in the hopes of gaining a meeting with Mayor Satrom and President White. At 11:00 p.m., the Guard announced that a curfew had gone into effect and began forcing the students back to their dorms. Ten Guardsmen were injured and a few students were bayoneted by Guardsmen.”

Monday, May 4th, 1970, In spite of the fact that 12,000 leaflets had been passed out canceling the demonstration, 2,000 folks showed up to protest the Viet Nam war, and the incursion into Cambodia.

“Shortly before noon, General Canterbury made the decision to order the demonstrators to disperse. A Kent State police officer standing by the Guard made an announcement using a bullhorn. When this had no effect, the officer was placed in a jeep along with several Guardsmen and driven across the Commons to tell the protestors that the rally was banned and that they must disperse. This was met with angry shouting and rocks, and the jeep retreated. Canterbury then ordered his men to load and lock their weapons, tear gas canisters were fired into the crowd around the Victory Bell, and the Guard began to march across the Commons to disperse the rally. The protestors moved up a steep hill, known as Blanket Hill, and then down the other side of the hill onto the Prentice Hall parking lot as well as an adjoining practice football field. Most of the Guardsmen followed the students directly and soon found themselves somewhat trapped on the practice football field because it was surrounded by a fence. Yelling and rock throwing reached a peak as the Guard remained on the field for about ten minutes. Several Guardsmen could be seen huddling together, and some Guardsmen knelt and pointed their guns, but no weapons were shot at this time. The Guard then began retracing their steps from the practice football field back up Blanket Hill. As they arrived at the top of the hill, twenty-eight of the more than seventy Guardsmen turned suddenly and fired their rifles and pistols. Many guardsmen fired into the air or the ground. However, a small portion fired directly into the crowd. Altogether between 61 and 67 shots were fired in a 13 second period.”

Four people died, Nine people were wounded. Many people feel that shock of the Kent State killings was directly related the ending of the Viet Nam War.

As with everything in America, we will never know why the Guard fired on the students. Was it truly in self defense, as they claim? Did they do it out of some warped sense of patriotism? Were they in anyway justified? We will never know, they details were buried forever in an out of court settlement in the amount of “$675,000 to the wounded students and the parents of the students who had been killed.” it was unclear to me if that was per each or altogether. But, the details will never come out.

Ohio
By Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
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?
.......
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.



Tlatelolco Massacre - 40 Years of Impunity


Kent State Shooting

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