Forty Years After the Kent State Shootings During the Vietnam War

The May 6th Wall Street Journal article "Kandahar Deployments Augur Key Fight in Afghan War" by Yochi J. Dreazen began:

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.—The Army brigade that will lead the coming U.S.-led offensive in Kandahar began deploying to Afghanistan this week, signaling the final preparations for what is expected to be a pivotal battle of the Afghan war.

Hundreds of soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team — a unit that parachuted into Normandy on D-Day — are en route to bases just north of Kandahar, the Taliban's home.

The rest of the brigade's roughly 3,200 soldiers will deploy in waves over the summer, suggesting that a large-scale offensive once thought to kick off this month won't start until June at the earliest.

This story appeared two days after the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings that occurred during the Vietnam War.

In brief, President Nixon widened the Vietnam War on April 30, 1970, when he announced an incursion into Cambodia. Protests broke out, and at Kent State University poorly trained Ohio National Guard fired on and killed protesting students and uninvolved passersby.

While it is never pleasant to send men and women off to war, there is a major difference between then and now -- there's no draft today. The U.S. has an all-voluntary armed forces.

But although the draft was widely unpopular, the men and women who served then deserved as much appreciation as we owe the men and women deploying now. We shouldn't forget history and we shouldn't overlook our obligations to our veterans and our active-duty military personnel.

To that end, stay tuned for information on an upcoming project to dramatically raise the awareness among Americans about PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. Her newest project is www.FilmsThatSupportOurTroops.com.Phyllis' company MillerMosaicLLC.com does power marketing that combines traditional marketing principles and Internet marketing strategies to put power in your hands.

Kent State University National Guard Shootings Anniversary Today

May 4, 1970 -- The infamous day that Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four Kent State University students and wounded several others.

And it is on this day that my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT begins as four very different women and their R.O.T.C. husbands travel towards Ft. Knox, Kentucky, for the husbands to begin Armor Officers Basic.

The student protests at Kent State have been in response to President Nixon sending American troops into Cambodia, widening the Vietnam War fighting. The scenes of American dead and wounded fill the nightly television screens.

The war with its drafted young men is widely unpopular in the United States. Protests take place from Wall Street to Main Street.

Read MRS. LIEUTENANT to learn what happens when these four young women are thrown together at Ft. Knox and must deal with their racial, religious, and class differences while fearing that their husbands will be killed in Vietnam.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs at LA Internet Business Examiner, Operation Support Jews in the Military, and Fiction Marketing, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life. Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites for book authors and small businesses.

The Aftermath of the Kent State University Shootings on May 4, 1970

Following the killing of four and the wounding of nine students at Kent State University by Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, numerous pro-war and anti-war activities happened. To give you a feeling of these activities, here are news items from “Day by Day: The Seventies,” Volume 1, 1970-1975, by Thomas Leonard, Cynthia Crippen and Marc Aronson:

• May 4 -- President Nixon describes Kent State shootings as unfortunate and calls for protection of the right to peaceful dissent.

• May 4 -- Presidents of 37 colleges and universities warn Nixon that the nation’s youth are being alienated by war policies.

• May 5 -- Students at Stanford and University of Maryland begin strikes to protest Nixon’s war policies.

• May 5 -- At a White House meeting, President Nixon tells 28 senators and 72 representatives that U.S. troops will be pulled out of Cambodia in three to seven weeks.

• May 5 -- Princeton University faculty vote for a two-week recess prior to the November elections to permit students to work for antiwar congressional candidates.

• May 6 -- California Governor Ronald Reagan orders 27 state colleges and universities closed until May 10 in an effort to cool student tempers.

Just yesterday in yoga class a fellow student said to me, “People think the 60s were turbulent. But it’s really what happened right after the 60s that was turbulent.”

My fellow yoga student was right. The 60s get all the “claim to fame,” but the Vietnam War did not end on December 31, 1969. And what had been started by anti-war protesters in the 60s spilled over into the early years of the 70s.

The anti-war protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968 was one such event that led toward the Kent State shootings. If you haven’t ever seen the 1969 movie MEDIUM COOL about the violence at the convention, consider adding this title to your Netflix list. The film will give you a window into the divisive feelings of this period in U.S. history.

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In Memory of Those Killed and Wounded at Kent State University on May 4, 1970

Thirty-eight years ago today Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State University students protesting Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia as part of the U.S. Vietnam War campaign – four students were killed and nine others wounded.

Here’s the first part of that chronology as detailed in William A. Gordon's book “Four Dead in Ohio: Was There a Conspiracy at Kent State?”

• April 30 President Nixon announces the invasion of Cambodia, triggering massive protests on many of the nation's campuses.

• May 2 Ohio National Guardsmen are sent to Kent State after the University's Army R.O.T.C. building is burned down.

• May 3 Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes personally appears on campus and promises to use "every force possible" to maintain order. Rhodes denounces the protesters as worse than brownshirts and vows to keep the Guard in Kent "until we get rid of them."

• May 4 Four students are killed and nine others are wounded when a contingent of Guardsmen suddenly opens fire during a noontime demonstration.

The four students killed were Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glen Miller, Sandy Lee Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder (the later two passerbys and not protesters).

The nine others wounded were Thomas Mark Grace, Joseph Lewis Jr., John R. Cleary, Alan Canfora, Dean Kahler (permanently paralyzed from the chest down), Douglas Wrentmore, James Dennis Russell, Robert Stamps, and Donald Scott MacKenzie.

MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL opens on May 4, 1970, as four newly married women and their officer husbands approach Ft. Knox, Kentucky. It is against this background of national divisiveness over the Vietnam War that these army officers will begin their military service.

Their orders to report to active duty include this one sentence in the special instructions section: “Ultimate assignment to a short tour area.” Translation: Vietnam.

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