Four dead in Ohio...

posted by The Vidiot @ 12:09 PM Permalink

I was only 5 at the time, so I asked my mom what that day was like, 36 years ago.

The memories of those time are painful and the Kent State memory is the most vivid of all. The war in Viet Nam had gone on for too long and we wanted it to stop and to STOP NOW! The government wasn't listening, the country-wide demonstrations were non-stop, "This war is wrong. Please listen to us! Please bring our men home. Stop the killing -- all of it!"

I was a housewife living in Youngstown, Ohio, about 45 minutes from Kent State. It was a beautiful Spring day, just like today, and I was at home with my two little girls ages 4 and 6. The little black and white t.v. was on while I worked in the kitchen. The Kent State demonstration was being broadcast becase in those days the anti-war news wasn't filtered from television -- the American public KNEW that there were thousands of people who opposed the war because they could see the fervor of these demonstrators on television newscasts.

I was stunned when the sounds from the little t.v. changed from the calm moderator's voice into guns shooting and fearful screams of students. What had begun as a peaceful campus anti-war demonstration had turned into that nightmarish visual of soldiers with their guns aimed at the students who were running from them, screaming in panic and some falling to the ground. Oh, my disbelief that these Guardsmen could be so stupid, so trigger-happy. They were shooting at kids who were their very own age. These kids were just trying to say: "Please listen to us. Please stop this stupid war!"

It didn't work then. It isn't working now. The pain of an unjust war made me cry then and it makes me cry now.