Four families got to bury their children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins -- never to hear their laughter or share their company again.
Murdered that day were:
William Schroeder, 19 - the Guard literally cut down one of its own, an Eagle Scout at 13, number two in the ROTC program, a short-haired Conservative-type at a time when long-haired Liberals were more the norm on campuses;
Sandra Scheuer, 20 - she had no political axe to grind one way or another, and was merely walking to her Speech Therapy class with a friend when (ironically) her throat was ripped out by a guardsman's bullet;
Jeffrey Miller, 20 - although he had long hair, no one described Jeffrey as a "radical," rather a typical college kid trying to find his place in the world (coincidentally, he had dated Ms.
Scheuer for a time);
Alison Krause, 19 - an Art History major, said to have been just a "beautiful" person, friends told how she had placed a flower in the barrel of a guardsman's rifle and remarked, "Flowers are better than bullets."
Of the six Ohio guardsmen charged in the shootings, all charges were dropped before any of them ever went to court.
The only people who faced criminal penalties were 25 student protesters.
A civil court eventually awarded the victims and their families a whopping $675,000. The one paralyzed victim was given half, leaving some $15,000 apiece for the rest.
The sole guardsman to ever express any remorse for firing that day admitted that he could not see a thing without his glasses, and had never been issued prescription gas mask lenses (something the Army was extremely lax about providing). Since the NG uniform of the day included gas masks, despite no presence of tear gas, he only fired because the guys around him did - blindly and out of panic.
It was indeed suspect that the Guard wore gas masks and covered their nametags with tape, thereby making identification virtually impossible.
What was the reason this lone rifle squad turned at the top of the hill and fired down on the crowd?
This is the only time in American history that Army troops have fired upon and killed unarmed civilians. So why was nobody, from Gov. Rhodes on down, ever held accountable?
There was a general concensus among those in power at the time (which lingers to this day) that the victims "had it coming?" For what? For being students on a college campus where they paid tuition?
Around 1973 I made a pilgrimage to Kent State. I walked the hill, the parking lot where several victims were cut down. I sat on the quad and commiserated with the spirits of those who had passed on that hallowed ground. When I returned to my car, I lingered a few minutes longer while drinking in the words of Canadian Neil Young's song dedicated to their memory:
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Murdered that day were:
William Schroeder, 19 - the Guard literally cut down one of its own, an Eagle Scout at 13, number two in the ROTC program, a short-haired Conservative-type at a time when long-haired Liberals were more the norm on campuses;
Sandra Scheuer, 20 - she had no political axe to grind one way or another, and was merely walking to her Speech Therapy class with a friend when (ironically) her throat was ripped out by a guardsman's bullet;
Scheuer for a time);
Alison Krause, 19 - an Art History major, said to have been just a "beautiful" person, friends told how she had placed a flower in the barrel of a guardsman's rifle and remarked, "Flowers are better than bullets."
Of the six Ohio guardsmen charged in the shootings, all charges were dropped before any of them ever went to court.
The only people who faced criminal penalties were 25 student protesters.
A civil court eventually awarded the victims and their families a whopping $675,000. The one paralyzed victim was given half, leaving some $15,000 apiece for the rest.
The sole guardsman to ever express any remorse for firing that day admitted that he could not see a thing without his glasses, and had never been issued prescription gas mask lenses (something the Army was extremely lax about providing). Since the NG uniform of the day included gas masks, despite no presence of tear gas, he only fired because the guys around him did - blindly and out of panic.
It was indeed suspect that the Guard wore gas masks and covered their nametags with tape, thereby making identification virtually impossible.
What was the reason this lone rifle squad turned at the top of the hill and fired down on the crowd?
This is the only time in American history that Army troops have fired upon and killed unarmed civilians. So why was nobody, from Gov. Rhodes on down, ever held accountable?
There was a general concensus among those in power at the time (which lingers to this day) that the victims "had it coming?" For what? For being students on a college campus where they paid tuition?
Around 1973 I made a pilgrimage to Kent State. I walked the hill, the parking lot where several victims were cut down. I sat on the quad and commiserated with the spirits of those who had passed on that hallowed ground. When I returned to my car, I lingered a few minutes longer while drinking in the words of Canadian Neil Young's song dedicated to their memory:
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
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