Four Dead In O-Hi-O

Frankly, we are all wasting our time. Notice how many people suggest to the resident gun nut that he is paranoid and blinded by his single minded devotion. He never seems to step back and say, I wonder if I could be wrong. Maybe I should consult a social worker or psychologist and find out if I am obsessive and what I should do about if I am.

I also notice the consistent insults. One of the righties took me to task for calling another "bitter." THis is a person who hates all things he thinks are left and calls the leftists Nazis. The person is bitter and bitter is so much less abrasive than the insults the right wingers responding to this informative thread habitually hurl. Jeez! their sputum comes through cyber space! I had to bring a box of tissues and put it next to my computer!

That said, thanks to the men posting here who have served in the military and can tell non soldiers like us what it was like.

Doesnt your legal training come to bear in making up your mind on this? I guess you are conflicted after all.

The picture is one of grossly outnumbered demonstratorsThrowing rocks at armed helmeted jackbooted NG "kids" . That is no excuse for deadly force in return wed beciome a police state at that single point in time. You are a fool if you think otherwise.

Let's be glad that all the students had were rocks. Imagine the response if they threw bottles. Nixon might've decided to go nuclear.

Then again, maybe the soldiers thought that the students had dismembered their commanding officers, and they were being pelted with what passed for brains among them.

A couple of random final thoughts re this thread that took on a decidedly bitter tone overnight:
> In basic training for this lad, in bitterly cold Fort Dix NJ, we were almost exclusively RA's and US's. No NG's. That was in Nov & Dec, 1968. Did I mention it was bitterly cold?
> AIT was in Fort Leonard Wood MO (aka Fort Lost in the Woods) from mid-Jan to mid-March, 1969. Perhaps 50% of us were RA/US and 50% NG. The latter knew that they would not be going to VN. The former, for the most part, were hoping for Germany but expecting VN. The NG's kept their mouths shut.
> NG's in my mind are Weekend Warriors who probably should never be armed.
> One of those interviewed re Kent State was the student walking by who became paralyzed. He described the large amount of hate mail and death threats he received while in the hospital.
> Just before Christmas of 1969, our local newspaper published a full page thing under a banner "Support Our Troops" with the names and VN mailing addresses of men and women serving there. I got about 40 cards, about 25% wanted to know how many babies I had killed. The publisher of the paper later told me the printing of that was the most stupid thing he did in his long career.

Is the publisher still alive - after a "long career" as of the early 70's he may not be. If not, I will repeat to you something I heard from President Nixon whom I met in connection with a legal matter of my then employers long after he had resigned: he said that the Kent State killings affected him more than any other news from Vietnam, Cambodia, any other of these hellholes, and that he, totally disregarding his Secret Service advisers, went out in the middle of the night to talk to demonstrators at the time camped out around the Lincoln Memorial. I only remember this as I heard it then, but presumably there should be something related in publicly available records.

Last and most important of all: those of us still alive have a duty, not only to the VN vets and to all those new vets of the new conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to the future, so for what that's worth I ask that anyone so inclined please support the candidacy of Gen. Petraeus for the US Presidency. Depending on how the mid-terms turn out he will announce sometime thereafter. Thanks for your service, to you and to all others.

as if rocks were not lethal weapons