"Four Dead In O-hi-o"

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 surgery

Sandra Lee Scheuer; age 20; 390 ft (120 m) fatal neck wound; died a few minutes later from loss of blood

The 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.

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.)