I rarely even have the radio on in my car on anymore. When I do, it’s tuned to NPR, and I’ll
generally listen to it for a few minutes before turning it off again.
The topic of the day today was the Kent State shootings of May
4, 1970.
Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were
injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on
a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment
for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its immediate
aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and
universities across the country. Some political observers believe the events of
that day in northeast Ohio tilted public opinion against the war and may have
contributed to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.
President Richard M. Nixon had been
elected in 1968 due in large part to his promise to end the Vietnam War. And, until April 1970, it appeared he was on the way to
fulfilling that campaign promise, as military operations were seemingly winding
down.
However, on April 30, 1970, President Nixon authorized U.S.
troops to invade Cambodia, a neutral nation
located west of Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops were using safe havens in
Cambodia to launch attacks on the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese, and parts of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail—a supply route
used by the North Vietnamese—passed through Cambodia.
Even before Nixon’s formal announcement of the invasion,
rumors of the U.S. military incursion into Cambodia resulted in protests at
colleges and universities across the country. At Kent State, these protests
actually began on May 1, the day after the invasion.
With a major protest already scheduled
for noon on Monday, May 4th, once again on the Commons, university officials
attempted to diffuse the situation by prohibiting the event. Still, crowds
began to gather at about 11:00 that morning, and an estimated 3,000 protesters
and spectators were there by the scheduled start time.Stationed at the now-destroyed ROTC building
were roughly 100 Ohio National Guardsmen carrying M-1 military rifles.
Over just a 13-second period, nearly 70 shots were fired in
total. In all, four Kent State students—Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William
Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer—were killed, and nine others were injured.
Schroeder was shot in the back, as were two of the injured, Robert Stamps and Dean
Kahler.
In a civil suit filed by the injured Kent State students and
their families, a settlement was reached in 1979 in which the Ohio National
Guard agreed to pay those injured in the events of May 4, 1970 a total of
$675,000.
17 days after the Kent State shooting, Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young recorded “Ohio”, and it was released in early June
Not surprisingly, there is a Facebook page dedicated to the Kent State shootings:
Although we are all familiar with the Kent State shootings, a
less well-known shooting occurred at Jackson State (Mississippi) 11 days later.
Although not related to the Vietnam War, it simply happened at a time when protests
on campus were common.
The Sterling Hall bombing that occurred
on the University of
Wisconsin–Madison campus on August 24, 1970, was committed by four men as
a protest against the university's research connections with the U.S. military
during the Vietnam War. It resulted in the death of a university physics researcher
and injuries to three others.
On almost the same day that the students at Kent State were
being fired on, I was on a plane to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to start my basic
training as part of my commitment to the Minnesota National Guard. A month
after I arrived, I received word that my cousin, Warrant Officer Donald J. Lundequam,
was killed when the helicopter he was piloting was shot down. More than
anything else, his death really brought the horror of the Vietnam War home to me.
His name is on Panel W9, Line 14. Thomas Brennan, incidentally, is on Pane W56,
Line 17.
My neighbor, Larry Kusilek, was killed on February 16, 1967 –
and I went to his funeral. Another high school classmate, Patrick Mercier, was
killed about a month later, on March 31, 1967,
The broadcast on NPR reminded me of the fact that the Kent
State shootings occurred almost exactly 50 years ago, a fact that reminds me
that I AM getting older.
In all, the Vietnam War resulted in the deaths of 58,220 Americans
over the 21 year period the war was being conducted. and the Kent State shootings were a significant
factor in turning the public against the war.
The first COVID19 death in the United States occurred in Washington State on February 29. By the end of this week, 100,000 Americans will have died from COVID19, a number that could have been cut in half if our country had taken aggressive action om March 1 instead of March 16.
Where’s the outrage?
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