Kent State
Kent State was the shooting at a college where students were conducting a peaceful protest against the Vietnam war, or more specifically the Cambodian Campaign, that killed four people. Nixon had sent in the Ohio National Guard on 4 May 1970 to break up the protest but instead, the guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds. The guardsmen thought they heard someone say fire while the students said otherwise. They ended up killing four people in the protest and injuring nine other bystanders and observers. One person was even paralyzed for life. The reaction was significant around the United States. Hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed due to strikes organized by students, four million to be exact. It also worsened the public's already deteriorating support for the Vietnam war.
Eye Witnesses
"The shots were definitely coming my way, because when a bullet passes your head, it makes a crack. I hit the ground behind the curve, looking over. I saw a student hit. He stumbled and fell, to where he was running towards the car. Another student tried to pull him behind the car, bullets were coming through the windows of the car.
As this student fell behind the car, I saw another student go down, next to the curb, on the far side of the automobile, maybe 25 or 30 yards from where I was lying. It was maybe 25, 30, 35 seconds of sporadic firing. The firing stopped. I lay there maybe 10 or 15 seconds. I got up, I saw four or five students lying around the lot. By this time, it was like mass hysteria. Students were crying, they were screaming for ambulances. I heard some girl screaming, "They didn't have blank, they didn't have blank," no, they didn't." - Anonymous |
"Suddenly, they turned around, got on their knees, as if they were ordered to, they did it all together, aimed. And personally, I was standing there saying, they're not going to shoot, they can't do that. If they are going to shoot, it's going to be blank."
- Anonymous "Then I heard the tatatatatatatatatat sound. I thought it was fireworks. An eerie sound fell over the common. The quiet felt like gravity pulling us to the ground. Then a young man's voice: "They fucking killed somebody!" Everything slowed down and the silence got heavier.
The ROTC building, now nothing more than a few inches of charcoal, was surrounded by National Guardsmen. They were all on one knee and pointing their rifles at...us! Then they fired. By the time I made my way to where I could see them it was still unclear what was going on. The guardsmen themselves looked stunned. We looked at them and they looked at us. They were just kids, 19 years old, like us. But in uniform. Like our boys in Vietnam." - Anonymous |