KENT STATE, MAY 4, 1970: America Kills its Children

Sad memories and a day that I thought the world was coming to an end.

I began to wonder how many younger Americans knew the full story and the significance of it, so I thought here was a good spot to begin.

BM

I beg to differ Edgar. I thought it was a wake-up call to just how ruthless this government was. That had to turn off a lot of borderline hawks, and conservatives.

thinking about that is like remembering someone else's life, i was, at that time hitchhiking from Buffalo to Erie at night in the rain and was stopped by some local Mayberry cops probably cause i was a longhair letting my freak flag fly and they demanded to see my draft card (that was the deal then-no draft card-get bruised up and bleeding) but i whipped out my discharge card and they were pissed. Here was their opportunity to get in on the carnage against us rabblerousers and i was just not giving them the excuse they needed.

Sadder yet, it was America's children killing its children. Those guardsman weren't much older than the protestors. I still cringe when I pass Rhodes' statue on the Statehouse lawn. Many still think he was one of Ohio's best governors.

Hell, they named the damned State Office tower after that clown--he was just grandstanding, taking a shot that he could position himself for national office, without a clue to the consequences of sending guardsmen in, armed, locked and loaded. In most other states, the guard are not issued ammunition without an order from the Governor. The riots at Southern Illinois University in response to Kent State (my sister was attending) where answered there with guardsmen, and they sent in Guard MP's, who were not issued ammunition. Some heads were busted, and there was lots of property damage--but i go along with the principle that property damage, to any extent, is preferrable to dead students.

I was at Fort Knox when this all went down. We heard about the bayoneting of students on Sunday night, but didn't hear about the shootings until much later. Most people don't even know that students were bayoneted on Sunday night--many, if not all of these were black students, and black student leaders put the word out that night to keep away from demonstrations on Monday. Ironically, when i was in basic, an Ohio guardsman told me that if he ever saw me in the street during a riot, he would shoot to kill. There was a bad attitude on the part of the Ohio guard, they were vocally anti-student before May, 1970. My evidence is anecdotal, certainly, but more than half of my company in basic were Ohio guardsman, and almost half of our battalion. It was also possibly the case in other states, but we certainly got the impression that the Ohio Guard in 1970 was filled with the sons of conservatives with some pull who could make sure their boys would not have to actually fight in the war. Instead, they were free to shoot down students--and none of the four killed and the nine wounded students had taken any part in the burning of the ROTC building, or the rally on campus that day, they were simply walking between classes. The officers of the guard badly handled the situation, as well. Mitchner's book on the subject is very well done, and his afterword shows how badly polarized the generations became because of this event.

We spent all day at the rifle range, and in the Irizany Vietnam training course at Fort Knox, and then were marched back to the barracks. We ate in the Cook School mess hall, because it was close--food wasn't that great, but not bad, either, and there always more than you could eat. They were building a new armor motor pool when i was there, and we walked across that construction site to get to the mess hall. I was about half-way there, walking across some waste ground with lots of brush, when i heard what sounded like moaning coming from one of the bushes. I went over and saw a GI laying there, badly beaten, moaning, with a face so bruised his eyes wouldn't open. I bent down toward him, and another GI walkin' by said: "You better leave him alone man, he's an Ohio guardsman." I said: "OK, they're all assholes, we know that, but you don't leave somebody in this condition laying here." He then asked me if i hadn't heard about the shootings. When i told him no, he told me about the students getting killed in Ohio. I helped the guy stand up and walked him to a battalion aid station nearby. A couple of guys asked me if i was a guardsman, and although i despised the Guard, and the Ohio guardsman, i said: "Yeah, what ya gonna do about it?" (I'm Irish, after all, very easy going, mostly lazy and cowardly, but don't piss me off, 'cause then i lose all perspective and caution.) Since i'm a big boy, they backed down. After i dropped the guy off with the medics, i started to leave, and one of them said: "Hey, ain't you gonna wait for yer buddy?" "He ain't no buddy of mine, i don't care if he rots--i wouldn't treat a dog the way he was treated, though." (Nothing against dogs, either, just an expression.) All over post, Ohio guardsmen either hid out for days, some were even reported AWOL, or they got the hell beaten out of them. It was an ugly time, for everybody, everywhere.

I was in Viet Nam on the Cambodian border at this period in time. My company had just humped off of an LZ (Landing Zone - ie, Fire Support Base) and about mid morning over 50 slicks (Huey Helicopters - troop carriers) flew overhead going west. We immediately knew what was going down. We stopped in file and people pulled out radios to catch the word on the Cambodia Invasion. There was cheering going on throughout the column - you have to understand that we observed strict silence in the field. This was a very unusual reaction.

My thoughts on Kent State has always been that the kids were killed by Guards (not Army regulars) and they were protesting for the wrong reason - unknowingly. Not too much later, my company went into Cambodia. I didn't go with them because about May 6/7 I spent my last day in the field and left Viet Nam for good on June 13.

You have no idea the amount of equipment that was captured and destroyed. I worked the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail where it came into South Viet Nam. The border was a barrier that the enemy would run across and we couldn't "get" them. We did cross it many times but we knew we couldn't get support because you would have to call in Cambodian coordinates. We were happy we could eliminate equipment that could kill us-legally.

The Kent State event brought to the attention of many, many people just how insane the government had gotten. This is the day that the protestors won the war (my opinion). Afterwards, many fence sitters became anti-war.

I would come back to the World (what we referred to as the United States), go to Fort Carson, Colorado and be put in a 5th Infantry Division unit. The main mission was to be used in case of anti-war protests and rioting. I told my superiors during training that they better not send me on any "missions" otherwise they might find me going to the other side. Fortunately, there were no incidents in my last 6 months in the Army.

On May 4, 1970, on the campus of Kent State University, we met the enemy -- and it was us.

Peace, and remember Kent State.

Thirty years later, and I'm still hearing things that amaze me. Here's some craziness you might be aware of. I was stationed in Germany. I'm African-American, and I faced racism. No, it wasn't the Germans, I had some of my warmest relationships, with the citizenry. It seems most of the white officers, and non-coms, were of the racsist southern persuasion. To give you an idea of the atmosphere.....One night in the barracks, I played Nina Simone's version of "Strange Fruit". Several guys used that as an excuse to go into town and randomly attack white soldiers. While in Germany, the only groups of people I felt a part of, were the townfolk, and the inamates, when I was in the stockade for a month. Conversations in the stockade, were as stimulating as Able2know. And why not? These were the thinkers, and rebels.

In the Navy (62-65) I encountered the entire spectrum of racists and non racists. Quite an education.