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What I Lost at Kent State
On Tuesday, it will be 40 years since my son Jeff was shot and killed on the campus of his college. He and three of his classmates were murdered by the National Guard at an antiwar demonstration at Kent State.
During a 13-second fusillade of rifle fire, Jeff, Allison Krause, Sandy Scheuer, and Bill Schroeder were killed and nine of their fellow students were wounded.
The students who had gathered that day - all unarmed - held a large range of opinions about the seemingly endless war in Vietnam.
Some, including Jeff, objected intensely to the increasing escalation of a war that had begun when they were barely in their teens. In fact, Jeff had written a poem about the war titled "Where Does It End?" in February 1966, shortly before he turned 16.
Others in the crowd had mixed feelings. Some were just onlookers. Some, like Sandy, were on their way to their next class.
And so, May 4, 1970, became one of the blackest days in the history of our country.
It was the day I not only lost my child but also lost my innocence.
I could no longer take on faith what I had been taught all my life about my "constitutional rights," the rights that supposedly made our country different from so many others.
The decade that followed was filled for me with grief, anger, disillusionment, and lawsuits. At the end of our legal battles, we were pressured by the judge and by our lawyers into accepting a settlement in which the parents of the dead students discovered that their sons' and daughters' lives were worth a mere $15,000 each.
It was never about the money for me. I wanted an admission of culpability, and more than that, I wanted an assurance that no mother would ever again have to bury a child for simply exercising the freedom of speech. But all we got was a watered-down statement that better ways must be found, etc., etc.
I also discovered what I perhaps should have known already: that so many of my compatriots did not feel as I did. They believed that the students who were killed or wounded got what they deserved and, as I heard far too often, the National Guard "should have killed more of them." And now - 40 years later - those wounded students are almost senior citizens.
Jeff, however, remains in my memory forever as that bright, funny, passionate 20-year-old.
I have spent 40 years watching my son Russ, Jeff's big brother, grow older. I've valued (perhaps more than I would have if Jeff had not died) the close, satisfying relationship we share.
I've had the great joy of seeing my grandchildren, Jeff (yes, another Jeff Miller) and Jamie, evolve from cute little children into a couple of the most admirable adults I know. I've danced at their weddings and have been made happy by their happiness.
But, once in a while, I wonder about my son Jeff's future, which had so needlessly been cut short.
What would he have been like now at age 60? What sort of career would he have had? Would he have married? And what about those other grandchildren that my husband and I might have enjoyed? Now, as I watch the news on TV each night, I deplore the increasing ugliness of politics, and I'm afraid. I know too well what can happen when hatred takes over.
Please, let us lower the volume and be civil toward one another. For Jeff's sake. And for all of ours.
Comments
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55 Comments so far
Show AllJustice is the highest form of civility.
Well, Visiting Professor, I've just finished your thought - and I myself like the outcome. It's beautiful how simple truths are. Thank you.
..."I don't think that is the ultimate prescription to address the current tumult in our society."
I agree completely VP. We are way past the times of turning the other cheek. Way past.
The enemy of peace, justice and understanding is not only our capitalist system, its the very same people for whom it exploits. They cower in fear and hope that the pendulum will finally, naturally, swing to the "good side".
The people in charge have all the others scared into submission and denial that by "being good" will turn things around. Being good never turned anything around.
Sad. Very, very sad--and dangerous. And it only makes the job harder for those to come.
People naturally have the ability to anger for a reason.
moonpie, you mistake civility for nonviolence. civility is merely not screaming and not insulting those who disagree with you. our democracy will be lost soon if we do not allow ourselves civil discourse. check out obama's commencement speech at the university of michigan saturday.
for peace and sustainability
I have no words for the loss expressed here. It is too painful to imagine. I can only thank you, Mrs. Holstein, for your courage and wish your whole family the best.
I do not believe much of what is happening is authentic, anymore than violence within the peace movement or civil rights movement turned out to be real. It was arranged by the government to undermine both groups. We only need remember that the white working class churches from the Midwest who went down to help after Katrina or the realize how many Southern churches welcome Hispanics and are helping in Haiti to realize we are good people here, however imperfect.
Civility is not passive. It is a force. Ask those who have most changed the world for the better - Gandhi, King and Mandela.
Gandhi did not seek justice but truth, and love. Tutu brought South Africa truth and reconciliation panels after apartheid. King never sought to punish anyone.
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
Mohandas Gandhi
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mohandas Gandhi
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS. --Mahatma Gandhi
The world owes a great deal to your son and the three other young people at Kent State who saved untold lives by what happened to them.
Wshing you the very best, Mrs. Holstein.
There would seem to be very little danger of anyone being shot today as too many Americans seem to be more concerned about texting than they are in protesting against the murderous policies of their government.
Civil disobedience in the future may be dealt with on a much larger scale with Obama's drones.
These two statements - yours, Elaine, and yours, Visiting Professor - bring tears to my eyes. We three have seen the greatest and the darkest days in the history of our country and our world. I had just turned 30 when Jeff and the others were shot. I was a grad student in Anthropology at the University of Washington, making the transition from blind veteran patriot to informed one. The Kent State massacre was a major turning point for me as well. I understand clearly your desire for civility, Elaine, but I do not think civility is going to get us what we want for our country, for our grandchildren. In the 60s and 70s we still had a journalistic media which has simply become a propaganda machine for the corporate control of our country. Our politicians, elected by that very propaganda media, do not really care what we say or do. They know that the television will own the 'opinions' of 50% of the population, and they need no more than that. They don't care. They don't have to.
*Comment deleted by site administrators for violating our Comment Policy*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
Alan, as you do, I feel for this woman & her loss. And yes you could certainly say that her son was lost due to 'empire'. But the word 'empire' is I think not revealing enough of a word to describe the society. Yes as say, it could be viewed misguided urges for empire turned against a citizen of the empire that took her son. So, I guess my point is that its not so much empire as slavery. That the entire world as well as all in this country merely exist as host/convenience to/for parasites or the 'noble class'. When you look at history and particularly U.S. history in the context of slavery, much becomes clear. The national guardsmen who took the life of her son, stood to gain nothing by the continuation of that version of Iraq/Afghanistan, they were just ignorant, mindless, immoral, slave drivers in the employ of their masters, although on a conscious level they certainly were clueless of the real situation. Very similar in nature to the modern day teabaggers. The question is, how can such creatures be reached today?
I wonder what happened, how their lives progressed, after the few who actually murdered those Kent State students moved forward after that. Are they well off? Are they living in poverty? Did any of them later commit suicide? Are they now generals in the guard? Were they thrown out of the guard? Were they prosecuted? Were any of their own children later murdered by the state? Are they content with their lives? Are they proud of their actions at Kent State? Lots of unresolved questions about that national guard death squad sent to Kent State that fateful day.
Probably off in Iraq killing dark-skinned people for our freedom.
I read a column a while back...(not too long ago (sorry, I can't give a reference)
by one of the shooters.
He was doing his job. He was following orders. He (they) had to shoot. He (they)
did the right thing. It was the rioters' fault. And, of course, he deeply
regretted that anyone had to die.
I don't know how many of the guardsmen he spoke for, but that he spoke at all
was blood-curdling.
The members of Hitler's SS were also "just following orders".
It was in the spring of my life that I got a temp job at MIT in Boston. I quickly learned that I was to fill the hole that would be created by the young man at the desk next to mine. He was heading out to Ohio for National Guard training.
In the few weeks that we worked together, he showing me what his job tasks were, that we both shared our hatred of the on going war and our desires for it to end asap. Our major difference was that he had received his draft notice while I had not yet. His choice to enroll in the guard was quickly made to prevent his enslavement in the army and visit to Vietnam. His reason was a strong and inflexible belief that he would not take a human life.
Some months went by while I learned and did his job before he returned. One day there he was back at his old desk but I soon realized that something was different and he was not the same person that had sat there laughing and joking with me as we got through our day months before.
One morning seeing the rough and haggard look on his face I slid my chair over to his and expressed my concern and asked what had happened to him. He told me how it was that he had become by force of training and drill what he hated a trained killer drained of emotion ready to fire upon command. Before even returning home after completion of his training he was deployed to Kent State May 4th 1970. There he was in battle dress with loaded rife standing in formation facing the protesting students. As only fate would have it there amongst the protesters was his little sister urning her degree at Kent State. She saw him and came to talk and ask how he was . He could not speak or acknowledge her and would not let her playful attempt to place a flower in the barrel of his gun. Then the order come to prepare to fire as his sister fled and then the order to fire.
That was all that he would tell of what had happened that day and soon failed to come to work. I left that job and returned to school myself and although I had protested many times against the war in Boston I never did again until many years later.
"The national guardsmen who took the life of her son, stood to gain nothing by the continuation of that version of Iraq/Afghanistan, they were just ignorant, mindless, immoral, slave drivers in the employ of their masters, although on a conscious level they certainly were clueless of the real situation."
Within your own post are words to describe the words you have written, ignorant, mindless and immoral. I am sure you think that you have it all figured out but you do not.
hey abe. the choice to kill or not is right there in a soldier's trigger finger. he could have aimed at the ground. how would anyone have known? (maybe he did). He could have checked into sick bay. He could have refused and spent some time in the brig. All those things would have hurt him, some badly. would any of those things have hurt him as bad as firing live rounds at his own people?
The big guys get most of the blame but they couldn't do the dirty work without the grunts holding rifles.
jareilly May 3rd, 2010 7:49 pm
Pretty easy to say at this point what you would have done. And I know not if this soldier pulled the trigger. That matters not he was put in a situation beyond his control. He could have, against his wishes ended up in Vietnam. I have know some who came back with parts missing including brain parts that never saw an enemy nor fired a shot.
He could have left the country as I had planed to do but would have had a very hard time ever seeing his sister again. He could have gone to jail instead.
None of these are good choices for anyone to have to make.
You make it sound like decisions over these matters would have been easy for you. But I bet you never had to face any choice in life close to what he had to face. All of it against his wishes.
Abe Winken
I do not believe anyone ever said that these were easy decisions to make. Whether they were easy decisions or not should in no way exculpate the actions of those National Guardsmen especially given the fact that the protesters, who were marching in accordance with a provision called the First Amendment in a document called The Bill of Rights, were unarmed. Allow me to repeat that because I happen to believe that point is fairly important. Those students, marching on a campus in a country called the United States of America because of rights given to them by the U.S. Constitution, were UNARMED. No matter how much you or anybody wishes to spin this, the fact remains that those shootings were entirely unjustified. I had returned from a place called Vietnam a few months before the murders when I read how the U.S. military, in the form of the National Guard, was once again committing atrocities. The only difference was that this time it was being done on American soil and against American civilians.
Erroll May 3rd, 2010 9:23 pm
I do not disagree with anything that you have said. Particularly the UNARMED fact. None the less,a big part you are missing.
This young man was forced to do one of 4 things. Vietnam, guard, Canada, or jail. Failure to obey in the guard is jail or worse trip to Vietnam.
It sounds as if you faced these 4 things and, of course, understand decisions that had to be made where very difficult, unless you volunteered. I do not wish to offend but point out that the decision to choose Vietnam was a choice to have to kill people in a land far away out of sight of those that might judge. The guard is trained to kill as well and doing a good job of that now in Iraq/AF/Pak and sometimes gets to do that at home and is seen by the public while doing it in plain vue.
The part that I think is important is the person, the group, the organization,the theology or the social construction that instead of using a gun used a pen to sign papers that sent 58,000 18-24 year old boys to their death in Vietnam. In this case, who used that pen, called in the guard and why are they are not still in jail?
That pen has not run out of ink. It wrote the final word in Waco, Texas,and Ruby ridge.It wrote the story of hurricane Katrina. It lied as it wrote Iraq and Afghanistan. It wrote the Tillman and Jessica Lynch story. Find the people who use this pen and punish them or it will never run out of ink.
The framing of Kent State has always been the expressive young college students standing up for what they felt was right and had the legal right to do that and they were indeed unarmed against the national guard members who stood there that day with loaded weapons and shot to kill. Missing from this frame is the puppet master pulling the strings that put both the students and the guard there. That would be the one with the pocket protector and pens.
Why is it that this same puppet master is still at work?
What I was pointing out was that the young associate I had worked with, against his will, was given a loaded gun and placed in a situation where he was ordered to kill his sister.
I would posit, who sets this shit up and why are they breathing our air?
Thankyou for your posts, Abe.
OnecaptainJim
History little notes the April 1971 sermon preached at Dewey Canyon III, by Rev. Chaplain Jackson Day who served in the highlands, whose back was to the locked and Marine-guarded gates of Arlington National Cemetery, while flanked by Gold Star Mothers. Rev. Day wrote a lot of poetry, while in bunkers, being shelled.
Fortunately, Rev. Day retains a Vietnam and Dewey Canyon III website, where his sermon is saved for posterity.
http://www.vietnamveteranministers.org/chaplain/memorial.htm
Please read it, everyone, it is highly inspirational. The Dewey Canyon III photos which often circulate the Internet among veterans, I made as a gift to Jack in 1997 [we first met in 1959]. They are PhotoShop modifications of some pages from =The New Soldier= see Wikipedia entry. Q.Where did I come upon a copy of =The New Soldier=? A. In a used book store in Calgary, Alberta.
Trylon [Bay City]
Dear Elaine,
Like the others here your story brings tears to my eyes and sadness to my heart. I lost my innocence too, another time, another tragedy, but neither one of us and especially you, didn't deserve this one.
Left with continuing questions and doubts about my own fellow Americans, leaders and other humans on our planet, I can't conceive how you continue to live without striking back.
You inspire me, along with the likes of MLK, Gandhi, and other saints who have continued to live with such pain.
All I can say is keep telling your story, it means so much to me and I know it has a valuable and important message to all of us who feel.
With great respect,
Jorge
Father's Day should also be dedicated to anti-war thoughts
and sentiments --
War and imperialism are too profitable for the elites to
resist --
Kent State was a horrific act of murder by President Nixon
and all involved.
As for the shocking comments by know-nothing's, the right
wing propagandizes the public making them immune to even
torture at this point. And once again we have perpetual
war in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Democratic Party which
has been refinancing Bush's wars for 4 years -- and a
Democratic president sustaining and escalating these wars.
Kent State was shocking then -- even more shocking when
the truth of it is known -- and it is shocking still today.
This is not "conspiracy-free-America" . . . !!
Truth has a long arc -- one day justice may yet pervail.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
My heart goes out to all the families who lost a loved one that awful day. I was 12 years old when Kent State happen and I know that what happen there helped shaped me into the woman I am today.
There was alot of youth in this country who opposed the Viet Nam War. There was lots of protests being held on colleges all around the nation. What Law did the students break that would justify calling the National Guard to silence them?
While I was to young to know boys in my age group going to WAR, we still opposed this war and wanted to bring the boys home.
It is true that soldiers themselves were spit on which is not right because many of them didn’t want to be there either but were drafted. I am happy to see that today we don’t treat the soldiers as enemies but the men who sent them to war are the people we are targeting. You know George Bush and President Obama who are sending our troops over to fight a war that many Americans don’t think we should be fighting.
We must let the students who died that terrible day encourage and inspire us to never give up or stop fighting and speaking out for the issues that are important to us. Let them not die in vain, but let them be an example of courage. We must be willing to fight for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and never give up our freedom.
40 years later we are seeing our rights being slowly taken away from us by such Laws as the American Patriot Act. Our government spies on American citizens and can even hold them without a trial by just branding them a terriorist. Our nation has committed torture on prisoners. We are once again caught up in a WAR that the American people do not want us fighting.
When we first went into Iraq people would look at me as I was crazy because I said that this Iraq war would turn out just like Viet Nam. They told me no, it is a just war and we must be there. Yet, now these same people are saying the same thing as I am and what many Americans are feeling about this Iraq war.
Only a fool says they aren’t afraid to face danger, but a brave man knows he could die but he is willing to fight for the moral imperative because he knows that someone has to be willing to stand up and fight. A man with courage faces his fear and moves forward anyway.
Our country is at a crossroads today. Our future depends on what road we take. Do we take the same ole same ole road and continue on our suicide path or do we take the hard road and fight knowing that we might die for standing up to those who would want to take away our freedom and twist our Constitution and Bill of Rights to fit their narrow view of the world. I have always chosen the hard road the road of hard knocks. I tend to not back down from the truth.
I believe the students that died at Kent State would want us to fight against a government who is out of control and who is leading us down a path that will leave the next generation of Americans enslaved to the countries who hold our high debts. China, Iran, and Russia are getting stronger and we are getting weaker because our government doesn’t care about the future that the children today will have when they become adults. They will have every right to curse us because we didn’t stand up and fight against the evil corruption that is overpowering our government. When are Progressive men going to start fighting to save this country from falling off the cliff of no return?
I actually haven't seen concrete evidence of even one instance in which returning Vietnam vets were spat on or called "baby-killers". I believe the "spat on" story is a rightwing myth, part of the "stab-in-the-back" myth that motivates all totalitarian politics. "We didn't lose! The liberal press and the weak-kneed liberals betrayed us", blah, blah, blah...
I knew lots of guys who went. We treated them with respect when they came back. No spitting, no cursing. Mostly they didn't want to talk about it; they just wanted to smoke a joint and forget about it, if they could.
I suppose a few jerks might have taken out their frustration with the war on returning vets, but I never saw it nor have I seen verifiable evidence of it. All I've ever heard is this "spat on" story, that began in the 70s, took hold and is now accepted as undeniable fact.
Here are a few other "undeniable facts" - America is always right and never wages wars of aggression. The protestors at Kent State were radical revolutionaries and spoiled brats, ruined by "permissive" Dr. Spock-type parenting. Racism ended in the 60s and now the problem is a bad "work ethic" or a "culture of entitlement". Schools can be made "better" by endless rounds of budget cuts and standardized tests. There is such a thing as a "free market" and it is the best way to create widespread prosperity.
I would wager that at least half the people in the country believe these things are true, contrary to essentially all the available evidence. So, please show me the evidence of the "spat on" story, if there is any. No disrepect to Ms. Holstein. Her boy didn't deserve it. Neither did the 3 million SE Asians who died as a direct or indirect result of our bombs, bullets and bayonets.
True. Just like today, the media was filled with LIES as it will always be in times of empirical wars. LIES LIES LIES The spatting on soldiers was not done by the anti-war movement. They were not like that -- that's what the other side was like and would have dressed up as 'hippies' and done the spatting just to get a photo if they wanted. LIES LIES LIES
Chrisy,
You are repeating the rightwing urban myth about anti-Vietnam war "hippies" spitting on returning US troops. It didn't happen.
see: "Debunking a Spitting Image"
by Jerry Lembcke
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0430-21.htm
or,
“Who Supports the Troops? Vietnam, the Gulf War and the Making of Collective Memory.”
http://sociology.ucdavis.edu/people/tdbeamis/pdf/beamish_who-supports-the-troops_social-problems.pdf
Jerry,
THANK YOU for your wonderful information !! We who were part of those demonstrations did NOT EVER hate the soldiers - because they were US - these were our classmates and close friends, our boyfriends and brothers. It was not until they began to return home in the late 60's with the horror in their eyes and their ruined minds and psches that people began to believe how evil that war was. And THAT is when we started to protest - never against the soldiers, but WITH them!
I am sure that there were a FEW young people who took their anger out on the National Guard troops, but remember that those troops had avoided gone to Vietnam - just like George Bush did. There was more ill-will toward them for that than for anything else.
Fran from Valley Forge
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own,
This summer I hear they're coming -
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it,
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Shoulda been done long ago.
How would you feel if you
Found her dead on the ground?
How could you run when you know?"
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Summer of 1970
One week after Kent State (and a similar shooting incident at a student demonstration at Jackson State around same time), I came back from thirteen months stationed overseas in the army infantry, pocketed my honorable discharge, and immediately rejoined the domestic antiwar movement, taking part as a veteran in demonstrations at places like Fort Ord, California and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nobody spat on me. But that summer was a horrendous, tumultuous time.
The Kent State massacre was indeed a watershed moment. Left unmentioned in Elaine Holstein's eloquent anniversary remembrance of her son's tragic death was what in many ways was the worst aspect. In the immediate aftermath, Richard Nixon made typically smarmy, off hand remarks about how these were the risks students ran if they put themselves in harm's way by attending peace demonstrations. Others on the right wing made even more vile public comments, echoing sentiments that the long haired hippies had just got what was coming to them.
The ensuing wrongful death civil rights litigation eventually made its own contorted, ambiguous history. Deepest sympathy to Elaine and the survivors of the other victims. Sadly, as I understand it something like $15,000 remains the going rate today in occupied Iraq for friendly fire collateral damage civilian casualties.
Bill from Saginaw
nixon finally gained my respect when he asked not to be put on life-support at the end of his evil life.
How much compensation SHOULD be offered? How much is a life worth? Fortunately an american judge has answered this:-
WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the family members of the 241 U.S. servicemen killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge ruled Friday, calling it the largest-ever such judgment against another country.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g1XRa7v7LYwf0sCshPG2V0YZdmoQ
Now 2.65 billion divided by 241 is $11 million each. That is how much a life was worth in 1983.
Now this bombing was part of the campaign by Hizbollah to remove illegal occupiers from Lebanese soil, and the Iranians were not even directly involved. The Americans soldiers simply had no right to be there, and as killers, their removal probably saved many lives. The Iraqis, on the other hand, have every right to be in Iraq, and the students had every right to protest. Given these circumstances surely we could double the value awarded by the judge, and that is how much the US should pay.
The Tea Partiers are largely those who never questioned what their parents taught them, and as Ms. Holstein says, the reaction of many was that 'they had it coming'. Eventually I questioned the lesson that Nixon and Agnew and their crew of hitmen taught my parents and taught me through them. But many never arrived at that point. Students today haven't yet recognized that their rulers have no use for their aspirations -- they need them only to build more advanced weapons, and to provide hands for the joysticks of drones and boots on the ground in the empire.
Thank You Elaine Holstein, for sharing your humanity with an increasingly less hopeful senior citizen.
never forget.
Few here will probably recall that the Kent State demonstrations were actually late in developing over the revelations that Nixon had secretly invaded and bombed Cambodia.
Two weeks prior to May 4, 1970 there had been the largest student demonstrations ever held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, when members of fraternities set bonfires in the centers of street intersections and then-Gov. James Rhodes ordered up the Ohio National Guard but never actually sent them into Oxford, instead sending in at least a dozen local police agencies while the Guard was housed at the Nike missile base at the edge of town.
Half of Oxford, a quaint college town, could smell and taste tear gas that night. The next morning a certain person walked around the campus picking up expired and unexpired ordnance including unfired 12-gauge shotgun shells. Much of the ordnance had ancient expiration dates.
This certain person then went to the Miami Administration Building where Gov. Rhodes was holding a news conference and was calling the protesting students radicals (this, when Miami was then and still is known to be among the most conservative public universities in the country). He wanted to ask the Governor why live and deadly ammunition was deployed, but he got to the news conference too late, as it had just been disbanded. This certain young man, wearing a Harris tweed jacket, approached Gov. Rhodes as he was leaving the news conference. Not certain it was actually Gov. Rhodes, the young man asked, "Are you Gov. Rhodes?"
"Excuse me?" replied Gov. Rhodes. The question "Are you Gov. Rhodes?" had to be asked two more times before Gov. Rhodes replied, "Why, yes I am."
To which the young man replied: "You're a fool. Anyone who would claim to be the governor of this state after what happened here last night has got to be a fool." There were many witnesses to this exchange.
The young man started to pull ordnance out of his pockets to show the governor as evidence of the idiocy of the night before, but was immediately grabbed by a very large plain-clothed officer who dug his fingers quite painfully into the young man's armpit and "escorted" him out to the hallway where the young man presented his press credentials, as an AP photographer took pictures.
The next day a picture went nationwide over the AP wire, with at least one major newspaper headlining it: "Man calls Governor a 'Fool'."
Two weeks later, Kent State, where unarmed demonstrators and accidentally-present students were shot down in cold blood, totally unprovoked. The intent was to destroy the anti-war movement, but that was not what killed the anti-war movement.
August, 1970, the Army Math Research Center (AMRC) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was bombed in a manner virtually identical to what Timothy McVeigh would do in Oklahoma City many years later---an oil drum filled with nitrogen fertilizer soaked in fuel oil or similar accelerant, contained in a van parked outside the building. The four bombers actually phoned ahead to warn people to evacuate the building, but one researcher named Fassnacht was working among loud old mainframe computers and evidently never heard the phones and was killed in the explosion that gutted the building. Fassnacht's death was unintended, but peace activists had an ethos: don't kill.
James Rhodes and Richard Nixon did not share that ethos. Elaine Holstein correctly uses the word "murdered" with regard to her son, Jeff. What happened at Miami University in Oxford Ohio was a prelude. I have been haunted to this day by the question, What more could I have done?
Last time I visited Columbus, Ohio, the statue of James Rhodes, life size, wearing a suit and tie, and carrying a briefcase, still stood on the Capitol grounds. I hope someone younger than I am today will blow it up or cut it into small pieces. The man was venal to the core.
I apologize to Elaine Holstein and all those similarly victimized by the Kent State murders and subsequent coverup. I can only hope that I have added to some further understanding of those events here.
-30-
Thank you, OleManRiver, for that beautiful review of history. And I do remember everything you mentioned. Oh, how we believed that we could change hearts in this country! And how joyous were those few months when Nixon resigned and the war was eventually halted.
But that joy was short-lived because the rich and powerful own us all and are once again riding roughshod over our values, beliefs and rights.
Fran from Valley Forge
My local paper also carried Ms Holstein's moving tribute; I hope she realizes how her son's murder affected many people from reading these comments. I will add this:
I did some research on Kent State a few years ago, and found an angle I rarely have ever seen mentioned in reports about the shootings. Those shootings took place just days before the election for Governor was to take place, and then Gov. Rhodes was in danger of losing to his Democratic rival. The student protesters were quite unpopular, and part of the calculus in bringing in the troops was political. (Those troops, by the way, were returning from a deployment to suppress urban rioting, and were not too happy over their Kent State detour.) Rhodes' strong stand against the protest gave him an up tick in the polls, and he was re-elected the following Tuesday.
For me, as a freshman in college that Spring, the sight of the body of Jeffery Miller in that iconic photograph was a part of a commitment to a life of political awareness and activism. He might well have been me, and I carry on partly in his memory.
To Fran from Valley Forge---
Thank you for your sentiments.
During the Watergate Hearings I sat transfixed in front of the TV as the hearings were televised (unlike the revolution that never happened).
Nixon was one of the most complex people ever put in power in this country.
LBJ was president during the TET offensive of 1968. If my memory remains intact, Walter Cronkite of CBS visited Viet Nam shortly thereafter and declared that the war was, minimally, a quagmire. Johnson is reported to have said that if he did not have Cronkite on his side he was lost, and he later announced that he was unavailable as a presidential candidate, despite the fact that he had probably been the most successful president since FDR (esp as regards Civil Rights).
I happen to think that LBJ knew then that he was dying from cancer, and thus we have 1968. Chicago. The Chicago Eight, then reduced to Seven as the black guy was recused and the assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by Mayor Daley in Chicago. This was a more precise strike than what happened in Philadelphia (or was it Baltimore?) where the bastards dropped a bomb on a city block???
Guess which President knows the details here...
Thus came NIXON.
Why is it that Robert Gibbs, of Chicago, can answer any question?
Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
-30-
There is an easy way to fight back against the warmongers -- in November, refuse to vote for any incumbent who votes for the supplemental war funding bill. Look up their votes on http://www.govtrack.us.
Instead, vote for any peace candidate, or don't vote. If you vote for people you know will fund the wars and keep them going, then you are an accessory to murder.
One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)
by Lambert-Potter, sung by Coven
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
As a activist against the war in Vietnam, my vietnam husband and I sat transfixed at the teevee watching Kent State students being slaughtered. We were terrified that Martial Law was coming. If they can shoot students peacefully protesting none of us were safe. On May 3, 1972 I had a daughter and my last name was Krauss. I named my child Allison Krauss in memory of Allison Krause at Kent State. I believe my child who is now a grown woman, very bright and smart and the mother of two lovely children will carry the name Allison Krauss for years to come. Kent State destroyed the peace movement made everyone fearful, perhaps that was the main reason for doing it.
Although I believe that the Kent State episode was the final nail in the coffin, I firmly believe that the destruction of the peace movement in this country began in 1968. Jules Wittcover's excellent book "The Year the Dream Died: 1968 Revisited Here in America" gives a good, clear insight as to how and why.
This is from my Facebook page:
Today I am remembering my friend Jeff Miller, on the 40th anniversary of his murder, not as the unwitting symbol of the domestic divisiveness of the Vietnam War, but as a family friend, a sweet, insecure 19 year old college student trying to find himself, just as I was. He never got the 40+ years, as I have, to grow up, find himself, and experience life . . .
Love to Elaine (and Artie?)
Erica W. D.
For what it might be worth,
Some of us then still kids in suburbs,
who grew with Whitman myths and Crockett hats,
through no special courage of our own
ceased to believe most of what we had been told
on May 4, 1970.
I am a Conscience Objector. I was against Vietnam. I am against all wars. I remember Kent State. I remember the massacre. I remember the photos. Thank you for being present, being with me, remembering.
we shall never forget.
will we ever forgive?
I remember the Kent State horror and the terrible things that were being said about the murdered students. finally the coroner had to state publicly that these kids were clean youngsters, not the dirty, needle marked trash that the media was trying to portray. How wicked are the great majority of moronic Americans that they believe every stupid thing they read in the newspapers and play act the angry enforcers afterwards? Makes me a little suspicious of American mental processes. Anyway regardless, the young men and women that died that day have never had justice and never will in a demented society like America's.
An alternate view, especially for the younger folks who may not have access to accurate history lessons.
1: The students at Kent State were not murdered, but in fact were in the wrong place a the wrong time. My condolences to the families - but lets not turn this into willful murder.
2: You may be sure that soldiers WERE spit upon when returning for active duty. It happened. I know it. Thousands of soldiers know it. In a small way, it is akin to denying the holocaust. It turns my stomach when I here it denied!
3: While rich kids got to march all about their televised campuses and (mind you) while keeping their collect draft deferments intact, a million or more average Joes went to war. These kids were largely rural and nearly always poor. And the untold story about so many of these soldiers - they were simply patriots - trying to do their duty as they saw it.
4: The God-awful truth of the Vietnam war - was that a generation of spoiled, self-indulgent, suburban children of the Greatest Generation - are forever tainted as the most back-turning, hypocritical and worthless generation America has ever produced.
I don't imagine anyone will spend time crying for a brave Marine I knew - who answered when his Country called, was spat upon when he returned, and died days later in a car accident - hit by some acid-popping college-kid.
I know it ain't much brother - but I tried to present your side. Nobody else does. Semper Fi!
Yes yes - of course war is a 'collective act of terror'. (Though sometimes the collecting is more to the one side than the other. For example, I doubt if the topics down at your local VFW run much toward a hallowing of Kent State.)
When Fogerty sang of the rain 'pounding in [his] ears', he was probably thinking of chants such as 'four dead in O-HI-O'. I don't recall anyone at the time lamenting over the weekly 'body-count' in VIET-NAM.
Today, young people (to which I originally addressed my message) probably see Vietnam as some surreal reworking of 'Heart of Darkness' or a moment or two from Oliver Stone's Platoon (of all people!)
And, you know, hell - we used to laugh at 'The Green Berets' with John Wayne. So tell me Mr. Visiting Professor - how is it that such a movie could end up being far more accurate than the iconic 'Vietnam movies' from Hollywood? Why the need to distort? How could the real 'country joes' become the enemy and deferral-hunting collegiates end up as the spokespeople for that generation?
Four Dead in O-HI-O? How about 'Charlie couldn't Kill Manny - That Honor Goes To: Just Another Escapist Looking for Drug-induced Retribution'?
I guess it just doesn't have the same ring, does it?
A few years ago, I interviewed Allison Krause's boyfriend, Barry Levine and Doris Krause, Allison's mother, for a book I was writing. Barry told me how much he and Allison had liked Jeff.
I can't imagine, Mrs. Holstein, how you were able to write what you did, but you did it superbly. I remember how difficult it was for Mrs. Krause to talk about it.
Last week, I create a pdf of the interview I did with Barry and Mrs. Krause. I think it makes a nice tribute to Mrs. Holstein's fine piece. It's here: http://thekisseloffcollection.com/wordpress/KC/ks.pdf
jeff