Tip: If the guy has a loaded gun, don’t throw stones at him.
The average American living today hadn’t been born when Ohio State
National Guard troops killed four student protesters and wounded eight on the
campus of Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
Campus rallies against the Vietnam War had been banned by the college,
but about 2,000 students defied the ban and turned out to throw rocks and shout
insults at the fully-armed Guardsmen, who had arrived on campus the previous
day and had already used tear gas to disperse protesters.
Around noon, the National Guard again ordered students to disperse,
fired tear gas and advanced with fixed bayonets. With. Fixed. Bayonets. Within
minutes, the young Guardsmen fired more than 60 rounds into the student crowds.
Four years later, a federal court threw out all charges against the shooters.
As it happened, I was in Vietnam at the time, serving our country. When
I heard the grisly Kent State news, in US Army headquarters in Danang, my first
reaction was: why would angry young men and angry young women provocatively
throw stones at scared young men in uniform who are holding loaded guns with
fixed bayonets? I also remember wondering where they got the stones—next time
you go to a college campus, count the number of stones you see lying on the
ground. I didn’t actually feel sympathetic toward the student protesters.
Today, I feel somewhat more sympathetic. I’m real sure that no student
in that mob at Kent State was seriously afraid that the guys with helmets and
guns would shoot at them. Kent State is part of America, right!?
Today, I feel sad that on May 4, 1970, some Americans who thought they
were doing the right thing decided to piss off other Americans who were
carrying loaded guns, and some Americans who thought they were doing the right
thing aimed their rifles at other Americans and pulled the triggers.
Today, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how hard it is for
all of us, separately and together, to
figure out what is “the right thing.”
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber
2015 All rights reserved.
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