UPDATE: Yeah, 4 STILL Dead In O-Hi-O
I really used to like that tune … I say tune, because it’s the music and not the lyrics I would listen for. However, this weekend, the FM rock station I listen to seems to think it needs to play the damn thing every couple hours for some bizzare tribute to this day.
So, if I hear that CSNY “Four dead in O-Hi-O” one more time I think I will scream!
“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming …”
FYI, CSNY … It was Ohio’s then Governor, James Rhodes who called in the guard … after a previous couple of days of “peace, love, and understanding” on the Kent State University campus and in the city of Kent. NOT Pres. Richard Nixon.
(SIDEBAR):
Ya hear that, former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco? The state’s governor calls in the National Guard in the event of a disaster or civil unrest … unless you pick up the phone and call the White House and say, “You take it, sir.”
Oh, and while I’m at it … The Vietnam War was Kennedy’s and Johnson’s war … Nixon just had it dumped in his lap like some tangled ball of so much armchair politically and media over-managed yarn. First he tried to untangle it … and then he just quit.
(END SIDEBAR)
I had just turned 12 years old a couple weeks before the Kent State University shootings. I refuse to call it The Kent State University Massacre … Massacre implies direct and malicious intent on the person(s) who inflicted the deaths being deemed as massacres.
May 4, 1970 WAS NOT a massacre.
As a matter of fact, a cherry-picking expadition by me of an old Temptations song, “Ball Of Confusion” better sums up what happened that spring day here in O-Hi-O …
“… Run, run, run but you sure can’t hide. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. … Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the…(preacher.) And it seems nobody’s interested in learning but the…(teacher.) … Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today. … The sale of pills are at an all time high. Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky. … And the band played on.
So, round and around and around we go. Where the world’s headed, nobody knows. … Fear in the air, tension everywhere. … Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors, Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills, Hippies moving to the hills. People all over the world are shouting, ‘End the war.’ … That’s what the world is today … Sayin’… ball of confusion.”
Usually we are spoon-fed one side of the Kent State University shooting story. That being the big bad mean blood-thirsty National Guard thug soldiers went gunnin’ for poor, innocent young free-lovin’ hippie types. Hell, you would think the Guard stood around and chortled as they took target practice on all those hand-holdin’ kumbia singing youths.
The fact of the matter is, while there was a percentage of KSU students involved in the organized protest spanning four days, many were overly curious students hanging around to get out of class and see the show … while the rest were east and west coast interlopers of socialist student groups, such as SDS … Weather Underground (See: you know … like Hussein’s buddy Bill Ayers types), who were bussed in for the planned event. Professional protesters …
There was not this perceived prancing and dancing about the armed Guard, popping daisies into the barrels of their rifles … No, the Guard was taunted, spat upon, hit with rocks, bottles and whatever else was aerodynamically available.
Now, I’m NOT saying that is justification for opening fire. But understand the ‘ball of confusion’ that was rolling faster and faster down that hill to that afternoon. Tear gas had been used on the protesters, so some of the Guard were wearing gas masks.
(TIMELINE SIDEBAR):
BTW, this particular display of peace and brotherly love was bestowed on Kent City police … ‘pigs’, ‘fuzz’, ‘the man’ … just days before May 4th on May 1st., in addition to vandalism, looting, and general drunk/drug and disorderly in the City of Kent. So, it was already established that ‘authority’ was not going to be an issue or a problem for these highly motivated people.
On May 2nd the city of Kent’s Mayor Leroy Satrom had declared a state of emergency and called the governor for his assistance and to please send in the National Guard.
By the evening of May 2 the Army ROTC building was fully engulfed in flames, thanks to the peaceful protesters … Oh, but they weren’t happy and content with just standing around cheering as the structure burned. No, when city firefighters and police arrived those brother-lovin’ kids just greeted them with rocks and bottles. … (I feel all warm and fuzzy inside right about now) … But wait … Those wonderful children TOOK one of the fire hoses, dragged it off and slashed the hell out of it … Must’ve thought it was some nasty anaconda trying to harm the brave firefighters …
Enter the National Guard in the late evening.
Of course, those vibrant youths were extremely excited to see the Guard setting up camp on campus grounds. Why! HOW DARE THEY! I mean, after all, it IS state property … and both the mayor and governor ordered them there … But how on earth could their orders override those of the leaders of the Commie/Socialist puke groups? The campus was their territory now … They had just spent the last two days marking it with piss, paint and trash. It had been conquered! Claimed for The People’s Republic of Anarchy.
Sunday, May 3rd the campus of Kent State University was now manned by nearly 1000 Ohio National Guard. (Now, remember, KSU was NOT the only college campus across the nation to be the stage for the violent and destructive antics of these “give peace a chance” professional anarchists. It was just the latest in the master plan …)
Gov. Rhodes held a presser and stated, “They’re worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the nightriders and the vigilantes … They’re the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we’re up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America.” He contemplated getting a court order that would pretty much have declared martial law to end the demonstrations … Best laid plans …
Despite a city curfew issued by city of Kent Mayor Satrom, “students” insisted on gathering. Tear gas was used as the Guard began forcing them back to the dorms … Of course, this didn’t go without injury on both sides. And tensions mounted … and mounted.
(END TIMELINE SIDEBAR)
On May 4th Kent State University tried to head off the protesters’ planned event for noon by dispensing leaflets saying it had been canceled.
Still the KSU campus ‘victory bell’ was rung to signal the ‘let’s get it started’ for the hordes.
Over the next few hours there was no turning back. The police, the Guard and school officials tried to reason with the students to break it up and leave the campus. But they had a master plan they were not going to deviate from. To make as much trouble and destruction as possible for all authorities, the university, and the Guard. Over the course of four days and several warnings they persisted. THEY escalated the situation minute by minute. They, in the end, obtained exactly what they had come for to the city of Kent, Ohio on that first weekend in May 1970 … a “massacre” for the television cameras and the history books … From high above in space it must have looked to the alien eye like some psychotic war between two groups of ants on a hill.
So, amid all that big ball of confusion, tear gas, gas masks, sweating and frustrated Guardsmen, angry and spiteful students and bussed-in professional protesters, drugs and alcohol, the bottles, rocks, trash, fire, previous days’ tussles, and the stress and strain of the time in our then troubled country … for whatever reason given or not, ordered or not, shots rang out and then … Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were sacrificed for the Communist/Socialist antiwar anti-American cause …
and a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young hit song was born …
38 years later, and after countless investigations, studies, and court cases … with plenty of unanswered questions still lingering … there’s more than enough blame to go around. Books have been written. And Kent State University has survived and grown. Two of my own kids have been students there. Currently my daughter’s honor’s dorm building is nearby the yet unfinished memorial to May 4, 1970 at the top of that hill where insanity ruled … and anarchy prevailed.
——————————————————————————————
Just so you don’t think yesterday didn’t go “uneventfully” in Kent on the 38th Anniversary of the KSU shootings and hippie-fest … SOME people really work hard to prove themselves … relevant :
Kent Police Arrest Four In Bridge Protest
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Four dipshits are dead. Cry me a river
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 pmdeathstar,
That was cold. My thoughts exactly.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 pmHmm, never heard the whole story on this. All I remember hearing was there were hippy protestors shot up on a college campus, for apparently no reason.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:55 pmDoesn’t sound quite as bad when you hear all the facts. Certainly doesn’t bother me that these commies died.
You guys are missing the point of drillanwar’s comments. Four mostly innocent people were killed because of the communist rif raff who instigated the four days of anarchy. This is what communists do, they use the innocent as stepping stones as their lust for power and control over the people. Too bad most of academia is too stupid and blind to understand that.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:08 pmRule number one: Don’t throw rocks at men with guns.
I never had any sympathy for those assholes. At least now, as fertilizer, they perform a useful function.
The reason you hadn’t ever heard the whole story is because the media was in the bag for their international socialist brethren.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 pmThis was proven by the intentional mis-reporting of the magnificent American Victory in the Tet Offensives.
those kids chose a side, and that was with the commies, or they would have not been part of the mob
innocent? not really.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 pmMay 4, 1970 there was a complete breakdown of our organized system of law and order. In those moments it was the purest definition of anarchy.
So, while 4 students were killed that day, and their side was the only one that counted losses … they still won.
Vehement even backed up my premise that we only ever hear one side of this story.
To this day at freshman orientation at KSU they discuss the shootings and the National Guard in these one-sided terms. The three days prior to those moments on May 4, 1970 just do not exist.
The context of this event has been completely ignored, covered-up, and possibly lost.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:21 pm1. They took over a building
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 pm2. Campus Cops showed up and were beaten back.
3. City Cops showed up…same as before.
4. DIFFERENT BUILDING SET ON FIRE
5. All Fire Departments that respond are also beaten back.
6. Building burns to the ground
7. County AND State Police show up AND ARE BEATEN BACK.
8. Reserve unit of the U.S. Army shows up (aka the Army National Guard)
9. Protesters do their thing…the National Guard does there thing.
10. Liberal Media does their thing.
[mostly innocent people were killed ]
IMO, unless you were activly kicking the asses of the retard commie fucks who burned the ROTC building (and if you were too weak to fight if you were not far far away from the “demonstration”) you were not innocent.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 pmConsider this a “palate cleanser” for your ears….
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 pmhttp://www.last.fm/music/The+Cardigans/_/Iron+Man
Umm. It was the Buffalo Springfield that did that song, Bash. I’m 55. I was around then. I think it’s tragic. But Those commie inspired students should be held responsible for these deaths also.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:33 pmIf you are talking about the song “Ohio”, it was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
http://www.thrasherswheat.org/fot/ohio.htm
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:39 pmI remember Kent State and Jackson State. I also remembered the large protests in the DC area and the trashing of the UM campus by these pukes. I felt nothing for them then, and nothing for them all these years later.
I cheered the NG. And I wish they’d repeat the excercise.
These are the same tards that joined Code Fink and the rest of the weirdo maggot organizations that want to trash our troops and our country.
Nothing’s changed, except now we have a ton of pro-troop organizations and many folks like GOE.
Code Fink and their ilk will have a hard time pulling off another stunt like the hippies pulled in the 60’s and 70’s.
This time there is resistence.
The counter-revolution is on.
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:10 pmI’m tired of college punks. They get killed that deserved it. Lets do more of it….
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 pmwhile what happend was sad, I do not think our own soldiers would fire without provocation-it was just one of those things that got out of hand quickly.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:31 amPat,
You are right, there is another side to the story.
The students that were killed were not a threat to the Guard.
Her are the distances:
Allison Krause - Age: 19, 110 Yards
William Schroeder - Age: 19, 130 Yards
Jeffrey Miller - Age: 20, 90 Yards
Sandra Scheuer - Age: 20, 130 Yards
2 were simply walking to class.
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
http://www.thrasherswheat.org/2008/05/ohio-why-todays-students-dont-protest.html
May 4th, 2008 at 4:00 amThanks for putting the whole thing in the proper perspective. I don’t know if the kids that were killed were die-hard, lice-infested, commie, hippy freaks or just 4 kids caught up in the insanity. I wonder if their parents ever once felt angry at these children for getting involved in that crap or if they only harbor hatred for the N. G. troops. This just shows us how feckless and treasonous the mainstream media has been for so long.
Once one realizes that the media is so biased, one can then see into the distant past and realize how long we have been deceived by the leftists in the media. They should all be sued for malpractice.
May 4th, 2008 at 4:54 amThanks once again to this site for the whole story getting out!
May 4th, 2008 at 4:55 amIf we could trade the 4 deaths for severe beatings of all protesters involved.. I’m in!
Great article drillnwr. It’s a teaching piece for my kids.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:17 amthe Buffalo Springfield lasted from April ‘66 to April of ‘68. To early for the Kent State debacle. Neil Young (Mr. play my way or I’m taking my football home with me) left a recording session telling his band members, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, he never returned, That was the end of the Buffalo Springfield as a band.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:30 amOhio National Guard - 4, Kent State - 0. Next time we need to run up the score a little more.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:34 amI was freshly back from Danang when this happened. My only feeling at the time was, “Good, about damn time.” Then, on a more reflection, I thought that the Ohio National Guard needed to spend more time at the range. There were hundreds of targets in front of them and only four commies were achieving room temperature.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:17 amKent State revealed the absolute selfishness of the anti-war movement. As soon as it became known that you could hurt being in an anti-war demonstration, they evaporated. This was the period of time when my generation raised cowardness to the level of a virtue. We still suffer with this attitude. The democrat party is sick with it and the American Left looks back on it as a Golden Age. It sucked, they sucked, and those who are trying to elevate them to a level of near sainthood is disgusting.
Thanks for the background and the article. I take it classes had already been canceled. If not, you’d think that now famous photo would have at least one if not several college appropriate items- books, bookbag, notepad etc. either carried or scattered somewhere in the foreground amongst the ten people gathered. Also, were there any injured survivors from that day?
May 4th, 2008 at 6:42 amArrggg! I had a brain fart. I was thinking of the song “For What it’s Worth”. But, you guys are right CSNY did do “Ohio”. Must be Alzheimers or something.
Sheesh
May 4th, 2008 at 8:03 am@ rightangle
I’m sure there were some other casualties that were not fatal. I remember watching a tv show about the whole incident and it had one guy on who got hit in the neck and was paralyzed. He wasn’t even involved with the commie anarchists, he was just walking by heading to class(if I remember correctly)
I lean more towards the Ohio state guard on this one. The mere fact they were called shows that the situation had escalated to that point. From what I remember from reading about the incident, the group of students kept throwing rocks and ish at them, until the guard retreated to a football field. When the group of students followed, continuing to throw stuff at them, a couple guardsmen turned and opened fire.
Don’t throw rocks at people with guns unless you plan on getting shot. Maybe the guard should’ve retreated, but I just think that would’ve emboldened those commie anarchists to up the stakes even higher. It would be interesting to imagine how the events would’ve been spun if 4 guardsman had been killed by the students.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:19 amDuring the course of that long weekend after the National Guard came on the scene, and the protesters willingly escalated the heated exchanges that began occurring from May 2nd to the pivotal shootings on May 4th, there were exchanges resulting on injuries on both sides. Some things I have read regarding the instances injuries to the students resulted from NG bayonets.
Yes, you are correct. there were others injured on May 4th during the shootings, one resulting in paralysis.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:58 amI have agreement with much of what is posted on this site but sometimes acceptance needs to be taken. The comments about these students getting what they deserved is one of these times. Americans getting killed by fellow Americans is never a good thing particularly when both sides are college aged. In this case two of the four had taken part the protests and two were simply walking to class. One of the four was a member of the school ROTC…so it was not a good thing for anyone involved, students or guardsmen.
“Two of the four students killed, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, had participated in the protest, and the other two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were walking from one class to the next. Schroeder was also a member of the campus ROTC chapter.”(wikipedia)
May 4th, 2008 at 10:00 amwhen i heard about the kent state thing back then,, i told my friends..”yup, poorly trained national guardsmen, if they had been MARINES there would have been hundreds dead”…
May 4th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I believe Drill hit on it beautifully when she referred to the Hurricane Katrina/Gov. Blanco affair. What is ironic to me was the constant 2005 MSM reference to the “displacement” in New Orleans. Well excuse me, was the displacement you had in mind a hatred of having to babysit a bunch of underprepared dome-dwellers and transfixing that upon the Bush administration? Again the only context was how the Federal Gov’t dropped the ball. If context were everything the MSM would have shown the overworked rescue workers throughout the Gulf region that weekend- the Coast Guard, an arm of Homeland Security had rescued tens of thousands in the days following Katrina. I found this about two months after Sept ‘05, and maybe 
Bash might be able to help out a bit, but the numbers show alot to me about the gross negligence showed by the MSM to the USCGS esp. the air crews that had upwards of 10k rescues by no more than 43 helicopters in the first few days following Katrina.
May 4th, 2008 at 1:05 pmhttp://www.faircount.com/web04/coast/katrina/index2.html
Bill Schroeder was an ROTC student. So … does he still deserve to die?
May 4th, 2008 at 3:45 pm@Janine Doughty
If students want to riot, set fire to campus property as they did at Kent State, University of MD, and at Jackson State, tand many other campuses in that era, then whatever happens is their own fault.
I blame the whole thing on the hippy assholes who trashed the campus and started the riot in the first place.
You play with fire, you get burned. The NG should have shot the leaders of the rebellion. Too bad they didn’t. But the hippies caused the problem, not the law. The hippies are the guilty ones.
May 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pmThese were supposed to be college kids. The best of the best.
Well, I’m not a Harvard grad, but even I know, you don’t throw rocks (or stand next to people throwing rocks) at other people who have loaded weapons.
Tragedy? Yes, Tragically STUPID!
May 5th, 2008 at 3:20 amlol hippies
May 5th, 2008 at 5:41 amTwo thumbs up!
May 5th, 2008 at 7:01 am