TIME FOLLOWS ME

CHAPTER THIRTEEN KENT STATE MASSACRE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KENT STATE MASSACRE

“What went on at Kent State, Brenda?” I asked.

I told her I remembered watching the news on the old Black and White RCA TV with the fake wood sides up in the den of the house on Pine Street.  I saw newsreel footage of people running and saw puffs of smoke and people crying hunched over their fallen friends.

“I assumed being only about 12 years old in May 1970 that they must have done something terribly wrong, but all I could see were some students gathering”.  I read later that the Ohio National Guardsmen a name I found quite repulsive had shot the unarmed students.  What were they guarding?  They fired sixty-seven rounds over a period of thirteen seconds leaving four dead students and wounding nine others.  One suffered permanent paralysis.  The students had legally gathered and protested against Nixon who had instigated the first “draft lottery” since World War II.  Not the kind of lottery you like to win.  There were no winners in this war, only losers.

They were angry because the war in Vietnam seemed to be winding down when the U.S. in 1969 invaded Cambodia that just exasperated the conflict.  Time magazine called the protest that happened a “Nation Wide Student Strike”, which set in motion the events of May 1970.

Brenda began, “ We could not believe that they were actually firing at us.  We were unarmed and were doing a peaceful protest”.

“A couple of times I saw them crouch down as if about to shoot, then get up again”.

“When the firing began I was sure they were firing blanks.  Then I saw people on the ground and all of a sudden everyone was running and screaming.”

“It was like in a bad dream when you can’t believe it is happening to you.  It was a total out of body experience.  I kept thinking that I would wake up and all this would be just a nightmare.”

“It took forever it seemed for the ambulances to come.  At least it seemed that way.  I heard later that it took about twenty minutes until the first one arrived.”

“There were some students who were obviously dead and others who were wounded and writhing on the ground in pain.  The State Troopers National Guard stopped firing almost as soon and as quickly as it began and then they seemed confused as to what to do next.”

“Some of the students shot had been standing between 270 feet and 390 feet away I heard later, and were not advancing or anything, just shouting out in protest.  Some shot and killed were not even in the protest.”

“Others about 300 feet away just seemed to drop to the ground.  Everyone did then when they realized that they were being fired upon or they just ran realizing these were real bullets.”

“After the shootings and all the attention in the National Papers, things just took a turn for the worst on campus.  There was some half hearted apologies from the President Nixon’s administration that seemed completely hallow.”

“One thing I remember was a Kent State faculty professor whose kid was in the protest came out and cried, “For the love of God please leave.  These National Guards are going to shoot you all.”

“He kept pleading and screaming for people to leave and the students eventually did.  I believe that he personally saved hundreds of lives that day.  Thank God we listened to him.”

Brenda’s eyes were wide and sad, resigned as she said, “It was like night and day after that.  Maybe the students felt like they had done enough, but most likely they retreated back to their classes.  Probably that was the best thing to do at the time, but it was so foreign to the energy that seemed always to be around people voicing their opinions, gathering and passing out flyers against “The Draft” and the ongoing illegal invasion of Cambodia.”

“We didn’t want war.  We didn’t want to be in some foreign land fighting an unseen enemy.  Why were they our enemy anyways?  We had no belief in our President Richard Nixon who would turn his guns on his own sons and daughters.  He called the protesters “bums”.  One Father of a girl killed said, “My daughter was not a bum.”

“If felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.  We had just had the shit kicked out of us.”

Stunned I said, “ This is hard to believe, I don’t understand a society that shoots it’s own children, students.”

Neither of us could express what this all meant for the future but we knew this was a turning point.  CSNY had put out the song “Ohio” immediately after the shooting in a space of about two weeks.  Ironically or some other word I cannot fathom, CSNY had a hit song on the radio and it was a song my brother and I sang at the high school folk assembly, “Teach Your Children.”

“You who are on the road,

Must have a code that you can live by,

And so become yourself

Because the past is just a goodbye”.

Well, I was on the road and I was going to find out.  Right now my mind was blown.  I felt an incredible amount of anger and anguish mixed with conviction, with a grip on the word, “Hope”, that I would somehow change the world.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I was going to do it.