Kent State
 

54 years ago yesterday

https://youtu.be/l1PrUU2S_iw?si=SoaRbUAA5fAm3YvK

I remember it well. Showed up for class at my college and classes were cancelled. I didn’t know what was going on because I hadn’t been listening to the news. I went to visit my friend at Ohio U and that whole campus was closed down and the National Guard was patrolling campus.
Strange times.

I was not even a teen yet ... and we didn't have a TV, so it didn't have much of an impact on me at that age. I know it did for those a bit older...

I was 17 when it happened....so much going on at that time, it wasn't real surprising.

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I was a junior in high school. A terrible situation.

In the mid 1990's the company I worked for sent me (in a group of 20) to Kent State for a month of intensive business/economics school. We happened to be there on May 4th. They had a minute of silence during class and had a ceremony at the location of the massacre. Needless to say it was a sobering experience.

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This one gives me chills

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It always drives me crazy when I see people dancing to 'Ohio"

The iconic photo of the girl kneeling beside the dead body along with the look of realization of what just occurred and who did it is a carved memory.

Got my picture taken by the F.B.I. too within a year or so.

not sure if this is behind a paywall

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-girl-in-the-kent-state-photo

Was supposed to be at Kent State that day. Ohio U had an exchange with four other architectural programs. Needless to say the school would not let the bus go there during the protests. Those kids were shot outside the architecture school. 3 days later everyone came to Athens where the school was shut for the semester after some activities on Court St.

Yep, remember it well. And thank you for the “Cost of Freedom”

A dear friend whom I now address as "Sister" left her home in Pennsylvania a week or so after Kent State and fled to Canada. She eventually married a guy from Edmonton and moved to Nova Scotia. When I remarked about her daughter's name, she told me her Allison was named after the girl killed that day in Ohio.
The paths we choose are not always straight. The burden is often shared without our knowledge.

Best
Les

Just this week I brought up Kent State when I saw the news pics of police entering the barricaded school building @ Columbia.

54 years? No way. Where did the time go?

In college at the time, very antiwar. I honestly think the period between 1968 -1970 was the most turbulent time in my life.

I turned 18 in ‘68. Didn’t know whether I had a future or not. It was a strange time for sure.

Good article.

I went to a blue collar beer party in Tallmadge, Ohio, 1978-ish. A Ravenna based national guardsman turned local police officer was there and was one of guardsman at Kent State.

I remember he was not proud about what happened. He was not assertive at all about defending their actions but did say it was not pretty (e.g., There were no flowers handed to them).

For those of us of a certain age, 1968-1974 were very weird, stressful times. As I noted above, I was in school in Ohio at the last college that stayed open after Kent State. The crowd descended on Athens about 3 days after the shooting. Lots of protests, sit ins, workshops and just a bit despair that the guardsmen open fire and were given live ammunition. I remember going to an encampment of local townie cops, state police and sheriffs who were just outside of town with the express goal of “busting college kids heads” which they did. I can still remember the chaos, tear gas and violence. Not a good way for my sophomore year to end.

Like many I was anti-war, however, most of us were not ant-solder as they were our brothers, sisters, high school and college friends. We thought we were doing them a favor in trying to end the war and get them home. Most may not agree with that statement, but all but the most radical believed that.

I was in the first lottery. My number was 255 which effectively took me out of the draft. Many in my dorm who watched the first lottery on TV had numbers less than 100. Many have their names on the wall. The saddest day was when my friend came back from SE Asia and found no support.

An interesting side note, in the mid-‘70s’ my dad told me that if I had been drafted he and my mother would have suggested that I go to Canada. This from a Marine who found in the Pacific and served during Korean War and who would have been seen as one of Nixon’s “silent majority”.

So remember that Americans have killed Americans in a sanctioned action after the civil war. I think history has proven that war to be unjust and unnecessary.
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I was only a couple years old, so I have no recollection of Kent State but I never liked the idea of hippies protesting against our military..... (In the 80's when I was college aged I volunteered and served in our military FWIW) Similarly I don't like the idea of woke college kids protesting and vandalizing college campuses today.

Just posting this to show that not everyone who is against todays college protests agreed with the 60's college protests. ;)

Rt, this brings back memories. I remember the day the lottery numbers came out. I walked into the student center and just about every male was reading the paper to look for their number. Mine was 352.

I had 3 friends in college who were Viet Nam vets going to school on the GI bill. Two of them were in the Army fighting, the third was an Air Force mechanic who serviced planes. They didn't share a whole lot except on occasions. The notable difference was the tone of the country before and after they served. Two of them remained friends well after college. One just past way last year. My dad was a WWII vet and had a negative opinion of that war. It wasn't the solders or the military, it was the politics that he took issue with. Those soldiers never got a parade or thank you when that war ended.