40 Years this week . . .

[Texsox]

Killed (and approximate distance from the National Guard):

 

• Jeffrey Glenn Miller; 20, 265 ft (81 m) shot through the mouth - killed instantly
• Allison B. Krause; 19, 343 ft (105 m) fatal left chest wound - died later that day
• William Knox Schroeder; 19, 382 ft (116 m) fatal chest wound - died almost an hour later in hospital while waiting for surgery
• Sandra Lee Scheuer; 20, 390 ft (120 m) fatal neck wound - died a few minutes later from loss of blood

 

 

 

[Texsox]

 

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/05/filo.html

[Balta1701]

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

 

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are gunning us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

 

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are gunning us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

 

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

[knightni]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-0...ent-state_N.htm

 

In 1970 the United States was in what the President's Commission on Campus Unrest later would call its most divisive period since the Civil War. The Vietnam War, stalemated after five years of intense U.S. ground combat, was the target of increasingly aggressive, sometimes violent protests.

 

When Nixon announced the Cambodia invasion on April 30, campuses erupted.

 

In Kent, some students rioted outside the bars downtown the following night, a Friday. Saturday night, protesters set fire to the ROTC building, and slashed firemen's hoses. Even before that, Gov. James Rhodes, a Republican, called out the Ohio National Guard.

 

He called the protesters "the worst type of people that we harbor in America," and said: "We are going to eradicate the problem. We are not going to treat the symptoms."

 

On Monday several hundred students gathered on the campus commons to rally against the war and the Guard's presence. The soldiers used tear gas to move the students off the commons, followed them up and over a small hill, and formed ranks in a practice football field.

 

A standoff ensued. Students kept their distance, chanting slogans — "Pigs off campus!" — and hurling rocks and bottles, few of which reached their targets. Then the Guardsmen retraced their steps up the hill, heading back toward the commons.

 

The crowd had swelled to several thousand, including protest supporters, observers and bystanders. Many of them now relaxed; the confrontation seemed over.

 

"It was OK until they got up on that hill," Vecchio recalls.

 

Suddenly, about 12 Guardsmen turned 130 degrees, raised their rifles and fired. "I heard the shots," Vecchio says, "and kissed the ground."

 

In 12.53 seconds, 28 Guardsmen got off 61 to 67 shots. (Some fired into the ground or the air; 48 Guardsmen did not shoot at all, according to the FBI.)

 

Vecchio found Jeff Miller, whom she'd gotten to know over the past few days, bleeding to death. There was nothing she could do. She screamed, "Oh my God!"

 

Also killed: protester Allison Krause; Bill Schroeder, an ROTC student who'd been watching the protest and was shot in the back; and Sandy Scheuer, who was walking to class.

 

Nine students were wounded. One, Dean Kahler, was shot in the back as he lay on the ground. The bullet left him paralyzed for life. Another, Alan Canfora, ducked behind an oak tree as a bullet passed through his right wrist.

[Balta1701]

New video includes audio suggesting that the soldiers were ordered to fire.