Archive for the ‘Kent State’ Category

Remembering an American Tragedy

Fifty years ago this Monday at Kent State University, four students were killed and nine wounded when National Guardsmen fired on protestors during a mid-day rally to protest the Vietnam War and the Guard’s occupation of the Kent State campus. What happened that day was an American tragedy — for the students, of course; for the Guardsmen, who were terribly led; and for the University, whose administration went missing in action at the critical moment. All the toxic waters of the 1960s flowed together at Kent State that weekend, in the worst possible way and with a terrible outcome. Writing 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence broke my heart time and again.

Please take a moment Monday to remember the dead: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. And also please keep in mind what Janice Marie Wascko, who was one of the students protesting that day, told me: “If there’s no forgiveness, there’s no healing, and the murder goes on forever.”

I’ll be talking about the Kent State shootings on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Sunday morning, beginning at 9 a.m. ET.

67 Shots Podcast: Tim Danahey Show, May 3, 2016

Author Howard Means talks about the tragedy that transformed America. Thirty to fifty serious protesters were surrounded by thousands of curious onlookers and students walking between classes. Over 1,300 National Guardsmen, 138 military vehicles, seven armored personnel carriers, three tanks adapted with mortar launchers, five armored command vehicles, 13 helicopters, and four fixed-wing aircraft had been dispatched by Governor Rhodes, who was in a race for the U.S. Senate. The ill-trained and improperly equipped Guardsmen were led by zealous commanders who had no tolerance for hippies and communists. Four people died, and nine were wounded. Some were almost three football fields away from the Guardsmen. The shooting was tragic, but the ensuing cover-up and misinformation was equally tragic. The media failed to report accurately, and the community and the nation never got the full story. Richard Nixon, according to Chief-of-Staff John Haldeman, was always strange, but Kent State started him down “the tunnel of the weird”. Listen to this amazing story.,

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