40 years ago

[kopfhorer1]

Forty years ago, an Ohio National guard officer decided to show students at Kent State University exactly what he thought of political protest by commanding his troops to fire on unarmed college students, many of whom were simply going from one class to another. 13 students were wounded, 4 of them died. (Gerry Casale from Devo personally knew Alison Krause, one of the slain victims). There was never an adequate investigation, parents' attempts to sue for wrongful death were rebuffed and no guardsman was ever charged.

I was a kid when it happened. After I heard about it, I reasoned in my adolescent way that order had broken down, all pretenses at democracy had been thrown out the window by our government and that martial law and concentration camps were probably the next step. In short, I was scared.

Most people here weren't around when the Kent State shootings happened, but you may have learned about it in school, on TV or by surfing the web. If you were around, how did you react to it? If you weren't, what did you think of the whole incident?

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

There was never an adequate investigation, parents' attempts to sue for wrongful death were rebuffed and no guardsman was ever charged.

That's disgusting. Why did the judges throw out those wrongful death lawsuits? The parents were perfectly justified in filing them!

What do I think? I think Korea and Nam were times when one generation of Americans (the older WWII Generation) utterly lost the ability to even remotely relate to the new generation of Americans.

 

[Horus]

I was in Jr High school at the time of Kent and Me Lai. We were scared if the war would never end. Some of us heard of Me Lai on short wave radio before the US media released it. No body believed us until we played tape recordings during Currents Events class.

A demostration was put on during the class assembly. My friends from the SW club and I wanted to hide. I felt sick.

Funny thing is...my 19th birthday was the offical end of the Vietam Era (7 MAY 1975).

 

[Hootus1]

I was in my sophomore year in high school, and I thought, "Son of a bitch, here we go again." As far as the Me Lai massacre goes, I always felt that Lt. Calley got his ass fried for following direct orders from above! That kind of stuff goes on in the military all the time. You step on some higher ranking officers toes and automatically your the sacrificial lamb! I may offend some here with that stance, but I'm sorry folks I worked for the air force for 24 years as a civilian, and I have seen it happen three different times since!!!