Yesterday, when I was 19, was 46 years ago; wait, that can’t be right…
On that day, in a low-profile, mid-west college campus’ commons, an event occurred that was among the most unforgettable of my brief life. It still is.
Some background: My older brother volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War, entering as a second lieutenant. We scurried around daily to read delayed, often conflicting news accounts of battles and ambushes – way before “real time” internet and social media reports – of where he was and how safe he was. And good luck trusting the veracity and accuracy of those often-censored reports. I mostly-knew that I wanted him back. The goofy, sports-loving, weight-lifting character I grew up with. We had lives to lead ahead of us: kids and jobs and soccer and families to grow as the next-gen. To join me and Jimmy, the youngest brother, and leave the geo-political madness and “the dogs of war” to some other self-righteous “leaders.”
But on the afternoon of May 4, 1970, on the grounds of Kent State University, angered and exhausted anti- war demonstrators faced off with exhausted, angered National Guardsmen. The result was the killing of 4 university students, and the wounding/maiming of 9 others. If you share a sort of Wikipedia-level of interest, read no further: A brief, neutered synopsis of the event can be found at http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Kent_State_Shootings However –the photographs and video and writings that followed reflecting the sounds of shots, taunts and student screams – and also politicians’ bizarre spin on the events– radiated far beyond the country’s heartland.
That day, my roommate and I, were studying in a dorm at a Jesuit university. We turned to look over our shoulders as a popular student seemed to sleepwalk by us in the hallway, ashen-faced, murmuring past room after room about what his girlfriend in Ohio has just phoned about: several students had been seriously shot and several fell bleeding after an angry anti-war demonstration. An ROTC building had been torched on campus the night before. And they’d been shot by our own National Guard troops. “Wait…” my roommate asked, in a semi-attentive tone: “American students? By our own National Guard? Where the hell was this??” The answer was clear: “Yeah. American college students. Ohio. Some place called Kent State.”
The dorm hallway emptied out – though many kept studying, napping, phoning friends, etc. Increasingly, however, we filled up Mackey’s room on the first floor– he with the biggest tv and sofa — to see and hear and discuss the horror of the events and the media reporting. The “usual suspects” of what was caustically referred to as “the Establishment,” offered up the warmed-over language of scapegoating and shaming of students – and occasionally their instructors — and the usual demonic explanations replete with supposedly omnipotent “outside agitators” everywhere to blame. That room that day–would have none of it. America’s leadership was now seen as allowing the killing of its own youth. That meant each of us ….
I doubt that many of my own students today could imagine the events that followed: hundreds of college campuses exploded in anger, shock, fear, protest marches and powerful, sometimes-destructive demonstrations. Several hundred were shut down across the country, including my own in New York. Students often lurched back into the community as well, asking to speak at high-school, churches, synagogues and community centers about the anger and betrayal they felt around both the draft – men only, please – and what they considered an immoral war. I joined them.
In hindsight: Over 58,000 Americans lay killed and countless injured both physically and psychologically. Who would ever tally the hurt to families, friends, institutions and the country at large? President Nixon’s secretive bombing of Cambodia, a promise he ignored, would go on to historic proportions: Cambodia lost 100,000 citizens, and two million became homeless. (Talk about a refugee crisis). Nearby Laos became the most bombed nation in history per capita; some American bombs still lay dangerously un-exploded today. Only five years later, after losing the war, would we pull out amidst chaos and proclaim at festooned podiums of our making “peace with honor.” Ironically, the history books would inform us that the re-united nation-state of Vietnam had lost some 1 million citizens. And it refers to the terrible decade of conflict as “the American War.”
The pop song “Ohio” became a national anthem to the carnage of that day. Years later, when a national memorial for healing and remembrance was chosen from competing artists, the conflicting sides of our nation’s politics and values was delayed and played out again, for years. One artist on campus wanted a sculpture of the biblical tale of Abraham being directed by God to kill his son Isaac; it was voted down. But that’s another story….
Maybe our students know this. Maybe not. Maybe we should discuss it with them honestly, seriously and from many perspectives. Some are in their dorm rooms now…

Rob Peters is a semi-retired counselor at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. He’s both taught and counseled students for more than 30 years.

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