On this day in 1970

Two thousand students assembled at Kent State to protest the invasion of Cambodia. They were met by 77 National Guard members with bayonets afixed to their rifles. With the President's and Governor's blessing, the Ohio National Guard "dispersed" the protest. Sixty seven shots were fired into an unarmed crowd of young American citizens. Four were killed, nine were wounded.

Today we face the same plight of war, and many don't approve of it. In times like these it serves to remember the fallen and the cause. This is a sad memory of many and I pray it doesn't happen again. Much love and endless respect for true heros and real ideals.


Allison Krause

Jeffery Glen Miller

Sandra Lee Scheuer

William Knox Schroeder

To this day classesd are still canceled at Kent state on this day. It was always a morbid day every year.

Of the four students killed at Kent State that day, Miller was standing closest to the Guardsmen. He was shot in the mouth by a single rifle bullet facing the Guardsmen while standing in an access road leading into the Prentice Hall parking lot at a distance of approximately 270 feet. He died almost instantly.

My Son Died 30 Years Ago At Kent State
by Elaine Holstein

Today is the 30th anniversary of the killing of four
students - including my son Jeff Miller - at Kent State University by the
Ohio National Guard.
At a few minutes past noon today, I am once again
observing this anniversary - an anniversary that marks not only the most
tragic event of my life but also one of the most disgraceful episodes in
American history.
Thirty years! That's 10 years longer than Jeff's life. He
had turned 20 just a month before he decided to attend the protest rally
that ended in his death and the deaths of Allison Krause, Sandy Scheuer and
Bill Schroeder, and the wounding of nine of their fellow students.
That Jeff chose to attend that demonstration came as no
surprise to me. Anyone who knew him in those days would have been shocked
if he had decided to sit that one out.
There were markers along the way that led him inexorably
to that campus protest. At the age of 8, Jeff wrote an article expressing
his concern for the plight of black Americans. I learned of this only when
I received a call from Ebony magazine, which assumed he was black and
assured me he was bound to be a "future leader of the black community."
Shortly before his 16th birthday, Jeff composed a poem he
called "Where Does It End?" In it, he expressed the horror he felt about
"the War Without a Purpose." So when Jeff called me on the morning of May
4th and told me he planned to attend a rally to protest the "incursion" of
U.S. military forces into Cambodia, I merely expressed my doubt as to the
effectiveness of still another demonstration.
"Don't worry, Mom," he said. "I may get arrested, but I
won't get my head busted." I laughed and assured him I wasn't worried.
The bullet that ended Jeff's life also destroyed the
person I had been - a naive, politically unaware woman. Until the spring of
1970, I would have stated with absolute assurance that Americans have the
right to dissent publicly from the policies pursued by their government.
The Constitution says so.
And even if the dissent got noisy and disruptive, was it
conceivable that an arm of the government would shoot at random into a
crowd of unarmed students? With live ammunition? No way!
The myth of a benign America was one casualty of the
shootings at Kent State. Another was my assumption that everyone shared my
belief that we were engaged in a no-win situation in Vietnam and had to get
out.
As the body count mounted and the footage of napalmed
babies became a nightly television staple, I was certain that no one would
want the war to go on. The hate mail that began arriving at my home after
Jeff died showed me how wrong I was.
To most people, Kent State is just one of those traumatic
events that occurred during a tumultuous time. To me, it's the one
experience I will never recover from. It's also the one gap in my
communication with my older son, Russ: Neither of us dares to talk about
what happened at Kent State for fear that we'll open floodgates of emotion
we can't deal with.
Whenever there is another death in the family, we not only
mourn the elderly parent or grandparent or aunt who has passed away; we
also experience again the loss of Jeff.
Elaine Holstein lives in New York. She can be reached at
pmproj@progressive.org
[P.S. Two days after this incident, two black students at Jackson State
University in Mississippi were also killed by the National Guard. These six
students were peacefully and constitutionally protesting an unjust war and
tragically became victims of it.]

one of my friends went to kent state, they usually have a big folk music festival every year to celebrate " dead hippie day"

They may want to extend " dead hippie day " to year round. Nearly sixty thousand young men died in that war. I'm sure that should qualify...

This is definitely one of the most disgraceful days for America.

Seed

nam myoho renge kyo

Please lets never forget!!!!!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

In Rememberance...

ws

Bill Schroeder was my room mate, I had to pack his things and take them to his parents. Second saddest day of my life.

They entered Cambodia because rebels were raping and murdering villagers and running across the border to safety, when they hit 6 patrols of our "observers" we chased them to bring back our boys. Jane Fonda spit at us and called us murderers and child killers and only showed attrocities of war with no background - that picture of the tiny girl running from the bombs was never explained to the public - she was running to us from the VC that raped and tortured her mother & grandmother and killed the village elder because he refused to help them locate us. Anti-war propaganda spin is dangerous, don't believe what the sensationalists want to show you.

Why do I defend the military action back then? I was there. Our job was to train them to fight for themselves - we had no live ammo and could not engage - as I watched the village elder's pregnant daughter tied to a tree in the center of the village and her baby cut from her, her insides spread all around the village and left to die. And they wonder why we still have nightmares......

All war is senseless and disgusting, our hearts continually go out to the families of those that have given so much but understood by so few. Should we be standing up for those that can't? Only if our government is capable of telling the truth and willing to bring them all back home, over 1800 american boys are still captives and slaves there - that's the real shame for the American people.

This is my anger rant, sorry. I better medicate, I need an attitude adjustment.

Spreading Seed said:

This is definitely one of the most disgraceful days for America.

Seed

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as tragic as this event it is no where near the most disgraceful days in america... lets not forget the bullshit suffered by those we took this country from...

not comparing, just keeping it real and in perspective...

real bad day, put i would dare not as bad as those that were in the jungle over there, knee deep in the blood and guts, serving, not protesting in a freedom delivered off their blood...

karmical said:

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A picture they say is worth a thousand words. This one imo is worth several millions. Life is a circle don't ya know, war is money and the rest is out of our control. But our world that we live in that surrounds us is what we CAN control. History as I have seen in my years on this earth ALWAYS repeats it's self. The letter from the mother of the fallen student stands the testament of time that all wounds never heal. Mostly to say a parent should never have to bury their child. It sometimes is very scary to understand that the one's making the decisions are the one's who are the most closed minded and ignorant.

I do tho sadly feel that we are entering into this circle I talked about. The propaganda we see on the national news compared to the REAL news we see on the net is becoming more and more separated. This in itself shows a great lack of leadership and trust which Inevitably takes some of us down the path of least resistance.

I can only say that in this time of the ability to find the truth that we look upon ourselves to understand the sadness that is beyond our control and focus on our world and do what I have said from day 1.

Share The Love And Pass It On.

To all of those that were touched by this saddened day I say I'm sorry for the closed minded ignorance that is our American Way Of Life.




Mr.Wags

Never forget.

:friends:

This is an example of why I do not favor the US going the way of Europe, Australia and other 'progressive' countries. Citizens without guns are captives when the government decides it is going to use it's own weapons to put them in line.

A semi auto rifle will not defeat tanks and other weapons of an advanced army or police force, but gives the government enough resistance that it gets messy putting down a revolt.

China, Russia, Cuba, Cambodia and all the rest, started with something similar to Kent State, except they just kept going till millions had been killed.

Your option to turn this into your political statement disregarding the lack of compassion or empathy has not gone unnoticed.

What a low class **** (c unt)

mrwags said:

A picture they say is worth a thousand words. This one imo is worth several millions.

snip...

Mr.Wags

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I thought that you were going to relate the story of the woman, really a 14 yr old runaway girl, that was the first to the fallen kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio

I remember that day well. "4 Dead in O-hio".....song, as well, still resonates.

Me too. I was a tad older than the girl in the picture then.

Shotguns loaded with 00 buck are still called riot guns.