Anniversary

[Jacqui]

This is the anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_Incident

[Judy Canty]

How well I remember. A true American tragedy.

[Jacqui]

I was there the day before and the day after.

[Johns]

There were minimally trained guardsmen that felt they were threatened. The may have been, but not to the extent that justified their actions. It was an unfortunate turn of events, but I don't think the term "massacre" is totally appropriate.

I live about twenty minutes from there, and often play basketball in the gym on campus. I know many of the people that were there that day (on both sides), and most will agree that nobody set out to kill students that day.

Did innocent people die? Yes. Was it a massacre? Hardly.


1mas·sa·cre Pronunciation: \ˈma-si-kər\ Function:noun Etymology:Middle FrenchDate:circa 1578 1 : the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty 2 : a cruel or wanton murder 3 : a wholesale slaughter of animals

[Jim Schafer]

I agree with Johns.

I wrote a response to a similar thread a few years ago.

All of the problems were on Friday night, May 1st.

It was the 7th game of the Knicks-Lakers championship (yes the NBA used to end in the spring!). The legendary game was in OT just as the Kent and Stow police arrived downtown to protect the Mayor's Oldsmobile lot on Main Street, a few blocks east (toward campus) of Water Street where a few (alledged outside) radicals had started trash fires in front of a couple popular bars.

The Mayor declared Kent closed and invoked the riot act. All the bars were closed....and Kent was a town of college and blue collar bars packed to the rafters. The lights went on and the TV sets off. That night was the first really nice spring evening after a brutal winter and lingering 38 and raining April. Kent was more than crowded that night with students and high school kids like me who could care less that night about the bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia. (maybe that morning they cared, but it was Friday night and everyone was looking for a date). They were bringing in spring!

Once the bars closed so abruptly, angry jocks and Friday night party'rs were dumped on the street with the handfull of troublemakers.....Now there were hundreds, maybe up to a thousand kids on the street.

THE PROBLEM WAS THE POLICE CLOSED THE BARS BEFORE HE GAME WAS OVER.....even the NBA says that game was a classic of the ages....This act alone would have caused problems anywhere in the US!

I do not agree with what happened, but the damage downtown and the ROTC building (actually more of a oversized storage shed) would not have happened if the bars were allowed to stay open that night.

The Mayor way overacted and was wary of what was happening at Ohio State. The National Guard was called in that night for Saturday and Sunday. They were deployed for a bitter Teamster strike where scab truckers were being sniped at on I-76 and I-80. The strike just ended but the NG did not get a chance to go home. The ONG did not want to be there.

Saturday and Sunday was very peacefull. There was martial law with check points on roads entering Kent. It was so eacefull, we thought it was over...but Gov Rhodes would not let the NG stand down. Colombus was burning and he thought the same could happen at Kent.

The problem on Monday was the ONG did not know that Kent students normally met on the commons for lunch. The officers panicked with all the kids on the commons and ordered them off (declared it an unlawful gathering)....again a mess....this pulled the majority of normal college kids together...why are they being messed with...they are not aligned with any of the radicals (from Buffalo if I recall correctly) This is what led to the confrontation.

Only one of the 4 who died was actively baiting the soldiers, the tragedy is he was barely 18 and just acting stupid. One of the girls was in a national published photos, handing out flowers to the NG who placed them on their helmet mesh, one was placed in a rifle barrel. The other student was in his mid 20's, an army vet walking between buidlings. The other girl was hit by a round that went through an MG. If her boyfreind had not pushed her down when the shots rang out she may not have been mortally hit.

Kent was branded as a radical school and town when it was nothing like that at all. It was all wrong place at the wrong time for everyone involved.

Kent (city and area around it) was and still is a good middle class midwestern town to raise your kids.

I mourn the 4 students and the ONG and police who had bad direction from decision makers who did not understand what was happening.