In 1970 four students were shot to death and 9 injured at a protest at Kent State University. I remember it well as a teenager and a couple of months later I talked to a chick that had been on scene at the time. She was still somewhat in shock over it.
The whole thing was a real mess. The OHNG had fired on members of the student body, killing 4 and wounding others.
Now let's look at it after my hot irish temper has had 53 years to sort out a few things...like who's responsible.
Lets look at the OHNG (Ohio National Guard) for a minute or two.
It was 1970 and the OHNG was armed with WW2 Garands. Not M-14s, not M16a1s, but leftover WW2 junk. The issue here is not how they were armed but why were they issued junk? My guess is that in basic training they qualified with either the (newer) M 14s or maybe even the (then) state of the art M-16a1s.
What this tells me is money was the issue here. They had no money for equipment and training.
Let's throw in a few more things from the time frame. The National Guard didn't deploy to Vietnam and to a lot of people was a pretty slick way to get out of going to Vietnam and having their cans shot off. Draftees served two years and stood a damned good chance of being sent to Vietnam. National Guardsmen served 6 years but didn't deploy. They owed basic training, a weekend a month and two weeks of 'summer camp' annually. Sure it was a pain in the ass but the alternative was probably worse.
Of course, with no money for training it probably degenerated to hanging around a damned barracks drinking beer every night followed by the Annual Summer Camp Bender, meaning they got no realistic training.
After all, the money for training was being spent wholesale in Vietnam. So much that LBJ plundered the Social Security fund to finance that war.
Bottom line: In this corner wearing the white trunks we have the emotionally supercharged student body. In the other, wearing the black trunks we have the semi-trained OHNG. Throw in a couple of second lieutenants fresh out of OCS that thought they were doing the right thing and what can ever have possibly gone wrong?
I really have a hard time condemning a bunch of kids in the OHNG that didn't have the proper training and discipline to do the job. Had they been trained regulars or even well trained Guardsmen the whole protest would have most likely been a nothing burger.
That again the student body doesn't have clean hands, either. The instant the first rock was thrown at the NG they dirtied their hands. They were asking for trouble.
On the other hand, a well trained unit would not have flustered.
I don't know who fired the first shot but my guess is it was some panicky dumbass poorly trained kid running around with the safety off and a finger on the trigger. Maybe he knee jerked after getting hit with a rock, maybe he tripped. Hell, maybe he was an asshole and fired intentionally but the flurry of shots fired was a knee jerk reaction because they thought the order to open fire had been given.
At the time I was appalled at the conduct of the OHNG because I naturally assumed they were regular soldiers that just opened up on the kids for no good reason. As an old man that's sifted through the information I've found over the years things have gotten clearer and dimmer. Mainly clearer. I've been able to look at things and access the information with less emotion as time passed.
Where does the blame actually lay?
I'd have to say it's both parties. Throwing rocks at poorly trained armed men is an excellent recipe for getting shot at. Throwing rocks is deadly force and legitimately can be defended with by deadly force. You do so at your own risk. It was a sad case of when a$$holes collide. The whole sorry mess is nothing more or less than an unwanted by-product of the Vietnam War. The blame goes straight to the top. I'll hand that to LBJ who escalated it and handed it off to Richard Nixon.
The interesting part of it is the irony. A lot of the same members of the OHNG were in OHNG uniform for the same reason the students were protesting. They didn't want to get sent to Vietnam.
======================================
This in no way is a slight to those that served in Southeast Asia during that period. It is simply an observation of an old man that lived through the period.
To our Vietnam veterans, stand proud.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LBJ proudly wore a Silver Star that was issued to him when he got sent to the Pacific. I believe it was issued to him by FDR.
Several years ago I researched it and found out that he did in fact come under fire under interesting circumstances.
The pilot of the airplane he was in wrote a statement that I read saying that the pilot was going over a Japanese held island that had ineffective anti aircraft fire that could not get up high enough to hit them. Apparently it was a short cut they took because they knew it was reasonably safe to do so. For some odd reason, pilots tend to avoid accurate anti aircraft fire.
LBJ was looking out the window and asked what the black puffs were. They told him n was ineffective anti aircraft fire and he went into a total panic screaming at him to get the hell out of there.
A couple of years ago when I wanted to look it up again it seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Paging Charlie Chan. Charlie Chan, pick up the red phone. We have a mystery for you to solve.
Take that any way you want.
No comments:
Post a Comment