We must remember

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Up until forty years ago today, there was only one thing I knew about Kent State University: it was where Sam Bair ran. He was a miler who was known for running very well during the indoor season but fading in the outdoor season (he was short, so he had an advantage in the tight turns on the indoor tracks).

Then the National Guard murdered four students for the crime of disagreeing with their government.

This is a day to remember.

3 thoughts on “We must remember”

  1. confusion, disappointment, sadness, anger and guilt…kind of like now.  But we were young and thought we’d make it all better.  We didn’t.

  2. An AP story out of Cleveland reports that a new audio analysis of the shooting has uncovered an order to the Ohio National Guard to prepare to fire — further debunking the idea that the guard was fired on and individual guardsmen “returned” fire on their own initiative.

    From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

    The recording was made on May 4, 1970, by Terry Strubbe, a KSU communications student who set the microphone of his reel-to-reel tape recorder on his dorm room windowsill, turned on the machine, and went outside to watch the unfolding protest. … The chilling 30-minute tape is the only known audio that captured sounds before the shootings, the 13-second fusillade and its chaotic aftermath.

    Right. And people wonder why our generation is so cynical. We knew they were lying then, and it’s not much surprise that it took 40 years and the deaths of “most of the senior Ohio National Guard officers directly in charge of the troops” for the truth to come out. Yeah, yeah, better audio techniques, blah, blah. Better audio wouldn’t have been necessary if the person who gave that order told the truth. Right.

    In 1974, eight guardsmen tried on federal civil rights charges were acquitted by a U.S. judge. The surviving victims and families of the dead settled a civil lawsuit for $675,000 in 1979, agreeing to drop all future claims against the Guardsmen.

    And then there’s this note (with Youtube video), from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which paid for the sound analysis.

    Twenty-eight guardsmen pivoted in unison and fired 67 shots in 13 seconds at unarmed and unarmored student war protestors some of whom were throwing rocks. Four were shot to death. Two of the dead weren’t even involved in the protest. Nine were wounded.

    From the Plain Dealer‘s story before the conclusions were reached:

    “Although many events have overtaken the Kent State shootings, it still looms very large in the consciousness of the American people,” [Alan Canfora, one of the nine KSU students wounded in the shootings, who runs the May 4 Kent Center] said. If a Guard commander gave an order to fire, “that makes a huge difference to how we as a society will look back on the events.”

    And from the Kent May 4 Center’s Alan Canfora:

    “There’s been a grave injustice for 40 years because we lacked sufficient evidence to prove what we’ve known all along – that the Ohio National Guard was commanded to kill at Kent State on May 4, 1970.”

    Always remember.

    NanuqFC

    All we are saying is give peace a chance. ~ John Lennon (& Paul McCartney)

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