I knew my Constitutional right to peaceful protest. I was an idealistic college junior that day in May, 1970, when Kent State students protested the Vietnam war. Like them, every evening I heard the nightly newscaster intone the roll call of the dead. Like them, I prayed that we would put an end to the fighting and the unrelenting summoning of our friends by the draft board. Even today, reflecting on that time, my hands shake over the keys of my computer as I remember how shock turned to horror and disbelief at the announcement of their deaths. "How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind." Bob Dylan
In researching this piece I was struck by how those students never thought the troops would fire on them, and if that might happen it would never be with live ammunition. They didn’t realize they were actually being fired on until they saw other students dropping from their wounds.
Exactly! They were tragically naive and so emboldened by their cause that its potential consequences never crossed their minds. We think we are so grown up in college and only later realize how long it takes to become an adult.
I knew my Constitutional right to peaceful protest. I was an idealistic college junior that day in May, 1970, when Kent State students protested the Vietnam war. Like them, every evening I heard the nightly newscaster intone the roll call of the dead. Like them, I prayed that we would put an end to the fighting and the unrelenting summoning of our friends by the draft board. Even today, reflecting on that time, my hands shake over the keys of my computer as I remember how shock turned to horror and disbelief at the announcement of their deaths. "How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind." Bob Dylan
In researching this piece I was struck by how those students never thought the troops would fire on them, and if that might happen it would never be with live ammunition. They didn’t realize they were actually being fired on until they saw other students dropping from their wounds.
Exactly! They were tragically naive and so emboldened by their cause that its potential consequences never crossed their minds. We think we are so grown up in college and only later realize how long it takes to become an adult.