Kent State, the 40th Anniversary

Today is the 40th anniversary of the massacre at Kent State in 1970. I was in junior high school and clearly remember the shock. I date a lot of my political sensibilities from this event.

NPR has a retrospective, interviews and a slide show. USA Today has an article observing the anniversary:

That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who'd campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia. Across the nation, students protested. At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away.

and compares it to student activity today:

Unlike Vietnam, the wars America now fights have never really come home. Students don't worry about getting drafted. The campus anti-war group is inactive. The big cause is Haiti, the big issue the cost and availability of parking.

The New York Times interviews some students:

Torey Wootton, now a freshman, wants to lie in one of those sites, to understand what her uncle Paul Ciminero felt on that warm and sunny day 40 years ago as he stood watching Jeffrey Miller, a fellow student, die in that spot. Mr. Miller was shot in the mouth by a National Guardsman.
...
And until she graduates, Ms. Wootton will follow the advice her parents, both Kent State alumni, gave her when she left for college. “We don’t want to see you in the news,” they said, “and we don’t want to see you get shot.”

Vietnam Protest Video~Kent State Shooting


Here are the lyrics to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young anthem:

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

...

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.

There are web sites devoted to this subject, among which are this one and this one. Here is the story of one of the survivors, left paralyzed after the attack.

The wikipedia article says,

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed and nine others wounded. The students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later.