Kent State

It's weird how little we know of the people we're around all the time. The guy in the cube across the aisle from me for the last couple years was a student at Kent State in May of 1970. I just found that out, and he just told me about what he saw.. and he was right in the middle of it. He saw Jeffrey Miller shot in the head, and in that picture is behind and to the right of the photographer.

Apparently the reason the National Guard was called in in the first place was because the Hells Angels were in town, and there was a lot of rioting and fights with students going on. It really wasn't so much about Vietnam to begin with, but the general mayhem was taken back to the campus when the National Guard was called in to impose the curfews. He saw the student that set the ROTC building on fire.

The Guardsmen were using armor piercing bullets as they had just come from a confrontation with a teamsters group. Because there were issues involved with large trucks and such, they were told to load the more powerful rounds.

He says that the picture above does not do justice to the results of what an armor piercing bullet going through a persons head does... an image that he cannot forget.

My co-worker says that he was interviewed by the F.B.I. a month later, and they had photographs of him at the various demonstrations. He found that curious due to not even knowing there was that much photography going on.. the thinking being that the F.B.I. was investigating "anti-American" groups, and had their own photographers at Kent State during the protests.

Wikipedia has more info here.

Historically, I think every American generation has had a "defining moment" at some point. The Kent State shootings and the Vietnam war was that moment for him. My generation hasn't had one.. and while that is good in that most defining moments involve great tragedy, it's also very bland.

The current political climate is so much less urgent it seems. It is as if we're all drugged somehow.