Today marks a grim anniversary in recent American history: 50 years ago today, four unarmed Kent State students were gunned down by Ohio National Guard members while protesting the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Nine other students were wounded by the 61 shots fired by 28 Guardsmen. The four students killed (and the distance they were from the shooters) were:
Jeffrey Glenn Miller; age 20; 265 ft (81 m) shot through the mouth; killed instantly
Allison B. Krause; age 19; 343 ft (105 m) fatal left chest wound; died later that day
William Knox Schroeder; age 19; 382 ft (116 m) fatal chest wound; died almost an hour later in a local hospital while undergoing surgeryThe deaths had a profound effect on the course of the anti- war movement and on public perceptions, particularly after a Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest confirmed that the shootings were unjustified; clearly the students were no threat to the Guardsmen, the closest being 265 feet away.
Sandra Lee Scheuer; age 20; 390 ft (120 m) fatal neck wound; died a few minutes later from loss of blood
Today, Kent State had a commemoration of the 50th anniversary.
(Photo: John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard.)
...this commission finds that Kent State students did willingly assault national guard bullets with their bodies.....
ReplyDeleteWeren't there two more students killed a few days later at Jackson State? My memory is failing and my heart is breaking.....sorry.
Bruce -- you're right. Two students were killed and 12 wounded at Jackson State on May 14 during protests. Later that summer, on the day before I was going back to UW-Madison to begin my graduate year, the bomb went off outside Sterling Hall where research was being done supporting the Vietnam War effort. Those were seriously violent times.
ReplyDeleteAnd today the Trumpanzees can scream right in the cops' faces and nothing happens.
ReplyDeleteInfidel -- you can imagine if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters. They'd never have gotten near the statehouse, much less inside, much less armed.
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