Today, a crazed gunman shot and killed, and wounded several people in Atlanta. It’s nothing new.
This week marks the 48th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. 18 years ago, I visited Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Hanoi, and Da Nang and for that brief period of time, got to know some people from the reunited country. It’s funny. Wars are started by governments, not people — I spoke with Vietnamese who bore little ill will towards Americans. I also met some U.S. soldiers, back for the first time since the 60’s and 70’s, eager to close some old wounds and understand a place they fought for and many of their comrades, gave their lives for. I was against the war in Vietnam. I didn’t serve, having received a high draft number and I honestly can’t say what I would have done if called up. That doesn’t make me a coward; it makes me confused.
5 years before the end of the war, one of my neighbors and a high school friend of my brother from Plainview, New York, died as a result of Vietnam. But it wasn’t in the rice paddies where our own soldiers, many of them in their teens, who chose to serve their country, fought and died.
This was in Kent, Ohio where 53 years ago tomorrow, May 4, 1970, four students were killed by National Guardsmen, many of whom were the same age as the protesters and should have been hanging out with their friends or attending college themselves, when they fired into the crowd.
Jeffrey Miller was a sophomore at Kent State University and a guy I saw at my home now and then, part of my older brother’s clique of cool seniors, “grownups” I wanted to be even if I was too young to be taken seriously.
Pundits argue whether the war at home influenced our exodus from Southeast Asia and one of the great rights that our military has fought for is the right to freedom of expression.
But no one figured that a college campus could turn out to be its own battlefield. This was America and we are a country that prides itself on having some of the most educated people in the world. We send our kids to college to have an education, something that many did not have. The greatest thrill was having a son or daughter attend a university and make something of themselves. That is truly American.
In 2010, Jeffrey Miller’s mom, Elaine wrote the foreword to my book about the life and loss of my 18-year-old daughter, Erica in 2001. In it, she shared her pain and her anger but she also shared her unwavering hope that we can become better people.
Today, killings continue on college campuses, churches, synagogues, and nightclubs, and the perpetrators all have some underlying hate or rhetoric to justify their actions.
But May 4, 1970, was a dark day in our history when 19-year-olds with guns faced 19-year-olds with banners and books. Some say the students threw rocks, some say the Guardsmen shot out of fear. I don’t know what went through any of their minds, what it felt like to feel threatened, just as I don’t know what it’s like for our troops around the world or young fighters in Ukraine.
But I do know that just as we remember Vietnam, we must remember what happened here at home — That day when the killing visited our own shores. We must remember Jeffrey Miller. And Allison Krause. And Sandra Scheuer. And William Schroeder. We must remember the families that were touched, Guardsmen and students alike.
Hopefully, we have learned something from Vietnam. Hopefully, we have learned something from all of our military actions in the years that followed, and God help us if we learned nothing from Kent State. These four are out of our minds and in some cases, sadly, out of our history books.
Thanks for writing this important piece. I had marked my calendar and may something on my post tomorrow. This song sung by Graham Nash feels right. Love ya, Peter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1zuRSlckD8
This remembrance was important. It was a sad day those many years ago. Thank you for posting!