Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 49 - The Kent State Massacre

Episode Date: May 4, 2019

On May 4, 1970 Members of the Ohio Nation Guard gunned down four innocent people at Kent State University. Nobody has ever been held accountable. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy some merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Follow us on Twitter @lions_by sources: https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/kent-state-shooting https://time.com/5583301/kent-state-photos/ https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html

Hello, welcome to another episode of Lines Led by Donkeys podcast. I am your host Joe and with me today is Rich. Hi guys. And Rich is going to this one completely cold, which is interesting. I literally have zero clue what we're talking about today and Joe refuses to tell me. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. Both. refuses to tell me i'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing uh both uh uh so uh this is gonna be interesting uh for both of us because your grandfather was a pretty highly decorated

vietnam veteran wasn't he i want to say you're right with vietnam that sounds right um i know that he was a retired sergeant major who he's a green beret in the 60s we're gonna assume he went to nam yeah yeah for sure okay so yeah he was special forces um retired as a sergeant major and he worked in government for over 50 years um so yeah i'm guessing nam yeah and uh my stepfather is a fairly highly decorated Vietnam veteran as well. So this one is pretty interesting to me because I guess as someone who's in college, Rich is also attending college, and the current climate in America today, people seem to have this idea that colleges are this bastion of incredibly left-leaning, almost militant ideas. And at one time, that was true. And that's why we're going to be talking about the student protest movement during the Vietnam War. And more specifically, we're going to be talking about the shooting at Kent

State. And full disclosure, the SDS, which I talk about in length, my stepfather was a full-fledged member of the SDS and did several direct actions with them. So I did my best to sound as neutral as possible, but it's kind of hard. So call me out if you really want to. It's fine. I mean, you're not exactly a neutral podcast, so I wouldn't be too worried about that. I don't know what you're talking about. And so in order to get to what we're talking about today, so you have never heard of the Kent State shooting.

Okay. So I want to say i've heard of it is it is it where the guy went up up to the tower and was shooting at so that was that was ut wasn't okay i'm thinking of something no okay no i haven't heard of the kent state shooting so i'm going to show you a photo and this photo will probably remind you of it have you ever seen this photo before you're so far away so interesting footnote up until this episode we've been using a a shitty folding like card table uh like uh really weird like if you were a depressed single person you would eat dinner at this table. It was maybe four feet wide. And that was on either side of that was where me and Nick sat to the point that, like, our mics were almost touching. And Nate, our producer, constantly was telling us, you need to get further away. So in the sense of growing up,

the table that we used to play beer pong on, which is about two times as long, is now our podcast desk. And it really feels like Rich is on the other side of the room now. Other disclaimer, there's a lot less leg room because the table legs kind of close in front of you. So I constantly try to lean forward and bang my legs into the table. So if you guys hear a lot of banging, that's what that is. Yeah, it's a shit desk.

Working on a budget here. And also, no, I have not seen that picture before. Wow, okay. So you're in for an interesting episode. But to get to the Kent State shooting and the heavy student protests during the time, we have to talk about Richard Nixon. But more specifically than Richard Nixon, we have to talk about 1968 when he was elected president. Despite how we know him now as a two-faced lying psychopath, during his campaign for president, he was elected on a platform of promising to end the Vietnam War.

Now, this was not some kind of anti-war platform. This is still Richard fucking Nixon we're talking about. It was more like, okay, time to pull out, bring our troops home because we have an exit strategy. And until then, that wasn't really a thing. I know that sounds like an abstract thing to people in the year 2019 of being trapped in a war without end. But before Nixon came around, it was kind of just like, yeah, we're just going to keep fighting until the communist goes away. And obviously, that wasn't working. So this was a message that the rest of the country could kind of get behind.

The war had grinded on for years at this point, killed tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands, if not more, of Vietnamese. So it gave Americans across the country who had been calling for an end to the war some real hope that an end was in sight, one way or another. end to the war, some real hope that an end was in sight one way or another, whether it be, you know, two years, we have a pullout strategy, whatever it may be. But, you know, then immediately that hope was that was dashed and it was dashed in the My Lai Massacre, which happened almost immediately afterwards. Now, I won't go into details here. I'm sure everybody listening has heard the My Lai Massacre. And I have an entire episode for that plan later. Just know that U.S. soldiers went into a series of hamlets, which they were also known as villages, and killed around 500 unarmed men, women, and children. There was multiple rapes and mutilations, and it was awful.

Nobody was really punished for it. But with those terrible crimes, an overwhelming opinion in America was that in 1969, the war is winding down. It's kind of like, I'll fast forward a couple of years ago when we were there, when we were in Afghanistan, and people were like, oh, the war is winding down. We're closing all these bases. And then Robert Bales killed 24 people. Like it was like a blip in the radar time and they covered up my life for a very long time. But even with this awful shit going on, people like, all right, all right, that's awful. But we're still getting out.

And that was by and large a part of what became known as the nixon doctrine and part of the nixon doctrine was something known as a vietnamization kind of like how they call it afghanization or whatever the fuck they want to call it's i think they called it uh putting an afghan face on the mission when we were there sounds nice and racist right and uh like when we were in afghanistan we had to do that it was like afghans lead every patrol in in theory um so in this in this yeah that makes sense when you're trying to make a nation stand on its own yeah uh so the tenants of this policy meant that the plan was to pivot u.s forces away from taking the lead in frontline

fighting and said build up the army of the republic of Vietnam or ARVN. So they'd become a fully functioning self-sustained army that could defend their country from the communist North and the Viet Cong guerrillas. This of course would eventually facilitate full American withdrawal and an end to the war. If that doesn't sound familiar, it should. We're still doing that today and it still doesn't work. If that doesn't sound familiar, it should. We're still doing that today, and it still doesn't work. But at the time, the optics were that, to Americans, that the U.S. had finally cemented an exit strategy, even if it was incredibly flawed. Just one example of how flawed this idea was. A good example, so a major strategy of the war was to eventually give Arvin a ton of helicopters. Because if the Vietnam War has one iconic thing, it is helicopter-borne soldiers, right? And we knew that Arvin would need these air mobile units to do the same thing the US Army was doing.

army was doing uh so but they had to train helicopter pilots there were no arvin helicopter pilots um but in order to qualify for helicopter training candidates would first have to speed in speak and read english fluently you can imagine from a country with its own very distinct culture and uh outside of that a very very entrenched um french speaking population that english was not at all remotely um accessible to them outside of the american forces uh that meant the pipeline to actually get someone trained and then back to the battlefield to be that vanguard of arvin helicopter pilots took about two years for one dude uh this is not going to be a lightning fast withdrawal by any means. So just as people are finally thinking the war is coming down, the draft

lottery also started. Now the draft had been going on this whole time. The US had been using the draft the whole war up until this point. It was generally kind of easy to get out of it. For instance, all the way back until 1965, just being married would get you a draft deferment. Really?

Yeah. It was single dudes who were between a certain age, not in college. So it was kind of easy to get out. And that actually, when they came up with those rules, there was almost like the... Have you ever heard of the Moonies? came up with those rules um there was like almost like the have you ever heard of the moonies like it's a weird korean cult where they have um like group marriages like 50 60 people get married at once that kind of happened oh because people just like well fuck it'll get me out of the draft um and then uh other another way out of it was uh enlisting in the National Guard, because the National Guard did deploy incredibly rarely.

It was something south of 10,000 soldiers. At that point, were they just more of like a stateside disaster type thing or what? Right, which is their entire purpose. Well, yeah, but they do deployments still. Well, they do now. Yeah. They didn't then. There was a very, very minuscule amount of National Guard soldiers

who deployed to Vietnam. Very small, to the point that getting a spot in the National Guard was considered a godsend because it all but assured you were safe. And the National Guardsmen that did go to Vietnam very rarely did anything that could look like a combat job.

So you were pretty much safe. This actually caused the National Guard to develop a waiting list. And you could skip ahead if you had college education because then you could be an officer. There was also a well-known system of patronage where you could get into the ranks of the Guard

if you just knew the right people. So here's another catch-22 of these developments. One of Nixon's campaign promises was ending the draft. In fact, he made it worse. So did he create the draft lottery? So he, not directly. It was the Selective Service Administration. So like today, the Selective Service

still exists. I had to sign up for it, even though I was already technically enlisted when I did. And it was widely known to be incredibly inefficient at the time because of all the loopholes mostly. And they figured that the draft lottery would be fair. It picked your birth date, and then you got added to a list, and then you got a draft number. And if some people got draft numbers so high, they were all but assured safety. But at the same time, you could still get a college deferment. So that's why it started becoming called a poor man's war. Because even back in the day, college in America was much cheaper and more affordable, but still, if you were poor and couldn't go to college, you're going to get drafted because you got bumped up through the lottery as the people with smaller numbers than you deferred out. Or just college is not for everyone.

Sure. Back then, you had to make it for you or you're going to go visit fucking Vietnam. Small side note here. So the draft went on all the way until the 70s. The last American enlisted man in uniform who was drafted during the Vietnam War, if you were to guess when he retired, when was it? I actually think I heard something about this. It just a like within the last like 10 years 2011 yeah that's what i thought okay so when when we were deployed yes uh so the same guy who was

drafted for the vietnam war would end up fighting in vietnam all the preceding conflicts to include both gulf wars and afghanistan before retiring as a sergeant major uh um to his credit um he obviously he re-enlisted and said the greatest choice he ever made but still uh so imagine being that guy's soldier and ever complaining like well that sucks well i was drafted a fight in vietnam like uh well it's 2010 maybe you should get out i can just imagine that handshake out the gate. Right, right. So this is now 1970. All right. So people are starting to get pretty pissed with Nixon. And then he ordered the invasion of Cambodia, which only widened the war further. So Cambodia at the time was militarily weak and had a policy

of not being involved in the war, which meant the North Vietnamese moved right in and began stationing bases there. Eventually, about 40,000 troops would be stationed there.

This led the U.S. launching covert bombing strikes and Operation Menu, as well as sending the good old CIA in. I feel like every time we say CIA in this show, it needs to be that fucking air

horn like... That would be awesome. Nate, put in the horn. Because we talk about it so fucking much. But so, in this version of the CIA getting involved in fucking shit up, a Cambodian general named uh lon noel launched a campaign launched a military campaign which led to a coup against a cambodian king nordham senohoic who was uh at the time pretty uh communist

sympathizing uh i guess it's hard to be a like a king and be like yep i totally support communist because like you're the first one against the wall dude but he was allowing the north viennese to pretty much set up shop in his country which led him to direct confrontation with america uh noel was a ardent anti-communist and knew nick and once uh nixon had him in power he knew he could uh pretty much do whatever the fuck you wanted because Because Noel was weak and couldn't kick out the North Vietnamese. But Nixon was like, I can do that for you. So he did. And the invasion commenced on April 30th, 1970.

As with that, we will go back to the United States. So by this time in the 1970s, the anti-war movement in the u.s based mostly through college campuses was thriving uh there was multiple different anti-war groups but the one we're going to focus on the more uh on the most here is the students for democratic society or the sds the sds was founded back in 1960 and was one of the main representations of what is now known as the new american left which i guess in 2019 is the old American left. They were really the main organizing force for active resistance against the war. By active resistance, I mean direct actions such as protest, fighting cops and getting involved to the extent of firebombing ROTC buildings. That sounds dangerous.

Yeah. ROTC buildings. That sounds dangerous. Yeah. And if I was to play devil's advocate, most of these kids were not kids. They're in their 20s, late teens, which is old enough to go to Vietnam if you're drafted. And I can kind of see this. Imagine if they had the draft for Iraq or Afghanistan. There's a lot of people that would see those wars as a direct threat to their survival. There's a lot of people that do even without the drafts. Right, as they should. I'm a full proponent of actively resisting things that you disagree with

because you pay taxes to the government, they represent you. Actively, but not violently. Sure. Now, I would disagree that um violence against property is violence because you're not hurting anybody um burning burning down rotc building didn't hurt anybody yeah but i've seen more justice for property than i have for some people that have had violence committed against them so and that will be a running thing here uh

unfortunately um now another things they did uh the the SDS motivated people to tear up their draft cards, skip the draft. People in the tens of thousands fled to Canada and were granted asylum. So the rationale behind burning the ROTC buildings is something I had to look up because that didn't really dawn on me how they thought of these as a target. And I'm not saying I agree with this. I'm just saying this is their rationale. So ROTC cadets represent rich kids, generally from military families. Now this isn't the case anymore. Maybe it wasn't the case then. I'm just saying this is how they were pictured. They would go on to become leaders of this war. Without the ROTC, there'd be no more leaders. Therefore, there'd be no more war. Obviously, that thinking is flawed.

West Point still exists. So basically, the ROTC is feeding into the officer corps, is what you're saying. Right. People graduate from ROTC, get their commission as a lieutenant, go on to fight in Vietnam. Is that really how that worked? Yeah. It still works like that today. Not from ROTC.

ROTC isn't... That's JRTC. Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm thinking of the shitty little high school kids who thought they were cool. No, no. These are what those shitty high school kids turn into.

Okay. And I'm not shit-talking ROTC officers. I've had several good ones. I've had several ROTC officers as guests on this show. No, no. Now I'm tracking. Now I'm tracking because i have looked into like the green and gold and all that stuff and i understand what the rotc officer

but um good job nate uh but what i'm just to put you in the mindset of why they would attack an rotc building i'm not saying i agree with it i'm not saying i don't agree with it i'm just saying this is what they thought um you get rid of the leaders, the war ends. Or maybe you discourage people from going into ROTC. One of the places that the STS was very involved with organizing resistance and demonstrations was Kent State University in the wonderful state of Ohio. I am contractually obligated as someone from Michigan to hate Ohio. I am sorry. I actually asked my fur sergeant because he's from Ohio and he said something about Michigan.

I was like, don't you hate Michigan? Yes. They're the only people that hate Michigan more than people from Michigan. So SDS activity at the school had always been pretty active. A few years before, the SDS had organized a demonstration against the police and military recruitment on campus. Much like today, back then, there was quite a bit of active debate against the practice of putting recruiters at schools. And they actually talked about it in Starship Troopers. The protests escalated into a full-scale riot and about 56 people were arrested.

Another occasion, student activists attempted to storm the school's administration building, only to get state troopers called on them and they got the shit kicked out of them and arrested, as protests tend to be in the 60s and 70s. So it goes without saying that Kent's think campus was rife for some unrest after Nixon went back on his campaign promises time and time again. And it began literally one day after Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. That's really impressive when you think about it. This is like the only way they could organize back then was through word of mouth and like flyers. But like it's literally the next day. There wasn't even time for flyers. Well, I mean, they probably were already fed up with, you know, a lot of things.

And just absolutely this was just the tipping point or something like that. You're going to see through the rest of this episode, there's several moments of like, this is the breaking point for the student resistance and the student active resistance. And even more so after the events at Kent State. Not that it changed anything, unfortunately. So on Friday, May 1st, 1970,

about 500 students gathered in a protest in an area what is known as the Commons. It's kind of a grassy, knoll-type area where it was open and large, so protests attended to gather there. It wasn't anything major. They gathered in between classes and dispersed once classes began again at 1 p.m.

The SDS and other student groups planned for further demonstrations. But soon students were getting angrier and angrier, and they were being lied to. They felt betrayed, and they were saying that the next step was to bring the war home. History students began burning copies of the constitution because they believed that nixon had killed it when and it deserved a funeral pyre people began to hang posters that asked quote why is the rotc building still standing uh the protesters dispersed uh they didn't go back home this time they went into town and uh they decided to settle in to do some good old-fashioned vandalism. This is where things like throwing bottles at cops, breaking store windows, and eventually

someone lit a bonfire in the middle of the town. Though, this is where things start to get a little hazy on who was a student and who wasn't because the vast majority of the vandalism was not done by kids from the school. Now, the SDS was also not just full of students. It was just full of people. But people like bikers and local homeless population began to join in on the mayhem, which led to looting and stuff like that. Hey, it's all in good fun, man. Yeah, why not?

And soon the entire Kent police force was called in and told them to cut that shit out. The next day, I mean, the actual protesters from the school showed up and tried to help them clean up, like clean up some of the damage and nobody trusted them. But at the same time,

the local community had pretty much just lost their minds. Businesses are reporting that communist students had joined forces with radical revolutionaries to destroy the city and the university itself. Other businesses said people had threatened them,

that if they didn't put up anti-war posters in their storefronts, they'd be destroyed. Rumors began to filter to the police of students with arms caches that planned to spike the city's water with LSD. Oh no! First, how fucking sweet would that be? i just happen to have a nice tall

cool glass of water now the walls are melting i mean there was even some like absurd shit of like uh underground tunnels that crisscrossed across town uh all of these were of course uh booby trapped with explosives to level everything like the whole concept is fucking stupid it sounds like a fun like larping session or something right but it's all taking part between like confused old people who live just off campus obviously none of this is true it's nothing but insane uh fear-mongering about some communist anti-war students uh which sure some of the sds were communist they were absolutely anti-war but they were not like marching down the street with kalashnikovs and rpgs getting ready to level the fucking city of

kent that was a complete fabrication um the the entire concept of these supposed heavily armed student militias was absurd. Uh, but you know who did believe it? The mayor of Kent, a guy named Leroy Santorum, uh, and the governor of Ohio himself, Jim Rhodes. Uh, they met with officers from the Ohio National Guard and agreeing that deploying guards into the campus might be a good idea. Uh, the troops were supposed to arrive by 10 p.m. on May 2nd. Unfortunately for the governor, and soon for the entire campus and the student population,

they did not arrive in time to stop the ROTC building from being set on fire and burning to the ground. When firefighters attempt to put the fire out, protesters slash their hoses, which, regardless of what side you stand on here, is a dick move. Yeah, it's kind of a dick move. Firefighters are just trying to do their job.

Yeah, and as someone who went to Fire Academy, you learn that when you drag those hoses into houses and stuff, that water does a surprising amount of protection. It saves your life. And now I don't know if they actually cut the hoses while firefighters were inside or firefighters went inside at all.

No firefighters were hurt. But still, dick move. Yeah. I'm sure the hoses are expensive and taxpayer dollars and all that. Yeah, they're definitely not cheap. And they're also heavy. Those firefighters worked hard getting them out there. So by the time the National Guard showed up, they could only arrest a couple people who were hanging around the burning building.

Also, according to one of the students, one student, sorry, according to records, one student was fucking bayoneted by a National Guardsman. And that is something I will say with frightening regularity. Why the fuck did they have bayonets? I have some bad news for you if you're outraged by the bayonets. Why the fuck? What? So we'll talk about a little bit later why they had bayonets and nothing else, because they didn't have anything else. What did they have the bayonets attached to?

M1 Grand Rifles from World War II. Did they have ammo? Oh, you sweet summer child. I'm... they have ammo oh you sweet summer child i'm i'm uh so for everybody listening right now that is shocked for you i feel really bad for me about to make you this upset um as you can imagine having a building burned down on campus infuriated the governor who went over to the kent fire department and gave an angry speech while pounding the desk so hard it nearly broke and can be heard in the recording. I feel like desk breaking is called for here.

Oh, he's not upset about the guy getting bayoneted. So here's this quote. Quote, we've seen here that in the city of Kent especially, probably the most vicious form of campus campus oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups they make definite plans of burning destroying and throwing rocks at police and National Guard and the highway patrol this is when we're going to use every part of law enforcement in Ohio to drive

them out of Kent we're going to eradicate the problem we're not going to treat the symptoms that's what we call foreshadowing the governor also said he was going to obtain a court order That's what we call foreshadowing. The governor also said he was going to obtain a court order and ban further protests and begin something that looked an awful lot like martial law. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, that he was never able to get that court order because that's fucking illegal as shit uh so in the middle of all this several students including members of the sds went to downtown kent and attempted to help people clean up and nobody would let them because they were not trusted like i talked about um now uh members

of the sds definitely did take part in some of the vandalism but there's an overwhelming feeling that within the group that their protest was co-opted by outside forces who broke a bunch of shit and then left so the SDS would get blamed for it. On the night of May 3rd, students once again began to get together in the Commons for another rally. Now the National Guard was camped out nearby and within 45 minutes they chased them

off with tear gas and according to the book 13 Seconds Confrontation at Kent State, several more students were bayoneted. Again, why the fuck do they have bayonets? So I wish I had a good answer for that other than the National Guard isn't supposed to be used this way. Yeah, I've got nothing.

Yeah, so the next day on May 4th, another protest was scheduled to take place. The school had actually done its best to shit-can the entire rally, passing around 12,000 leaflets saying it was canceled. It wasn't really canceled, and it didn't work.

Around 2,000 people, this time mostly students, showed up in the commons near Taylor Hall. And that's when the National Guard showed up. Companies A and C of the 1st Battalion of the 145th Infantry along with Gulf Troop, 2nd Squadron,

107th Armored Cavalry of the Ohio National Guard moved in to attempt to disperse the gathering crowds. By late morning, a campus cop named Harold Rice was riding around in a National Guard jeep trying to get rid of protesters.

So, what he was doing was pretty much just driving around in circles, reading off a letter from the governor to disperse. He was just trying to help out the National Guard. Protesters responded by chucking a rock right into his fucking face, causing him to retreat.

Rock in the face is all that takes. Yeah. I think it was Kurt Cobain that was wearing a shirt one time at a concert that said rock and roll is as awesome as a rock in a cop's face. I think it probably wasn't from Kent State, but I like to think it was.

So by around noon, the National Guard once again attempted to chase off protesters with tear gas. But it was a particularly windy day and the tear gas had no effect. Most of the protesters stayed where they were. They answered the National Guard's tear gas to the selve of rocks and they would pick up the tear gas canister and throw them back. Okay, so was it like an out-of-control violent protest or are they just anticipating that and so that's what they fought against? It seems like people are just exercising their constitutional right to protest and the university overreacting pretty much um what it came down to is everybody was terrified that this communist horde was going to blow up the city of kent or whatever other madness they believed um there was no violence except between national

guard and students and it did not start until a national guard showed up and started firing tear gas and bayonetting people. Students definitely were throwing rocks and tear gas and hurling insults and everything back. That definitely happened, but the National Guard didn't need to be there. It's crazy how everybody cares so deeply about our constitutional rights until somebody wants to use one.

As long as you do it the right way, which is not saying anything against the government. The right way. The right way. As in right. freedom with an asterisk above it uh it's like going to the zoo and seeing a bald eagle in a cage um so once the commons was cleared the soldiers seemingly gathered in a loose group and began talking they were probably trying to figure out what was what they were supposed to do next. Eventually, students began to make their way back to the area. Undoubtedly

pissed off, these guys just tried to bayonet them. I'd be pretty pissed too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now this is the part where I have to break your heart. After about 10 minutes of getting yelled at and having rocks thrown at them, the soldiers began to make their way back to an area

known as Blanket Hill, where they had started on the other side of the commons. That was when, according to eyewitnesses and video, the soldiers stopped, turned, leveled their weapons at the protesters, and it is generally accepted now that 1st Sergeant Myron Pryor, the senior NCO

of the group, opened fire. Once he opened fire with his sidearm, the rest of the soldiers around him began to fire volleys down at the un opened fire. Once he opened fire with his sidearm, the rest of the soldiers around him began to fire volleys down at the unarmed protesters. Of the 77 soldiers in the group, at least 29 were determined to have opened fire. Using

67 rounds of ammunition, they fired onto protesters for only about 13 seconds. Their volley would kill four and wound a further nine. 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller, 19-year-old Allison Krause, Holy shit. Schroeder and Schauer were actually not taking part in the protest. Instead, they were killed in cold blood while walking to their next class nearly two entire football fields away from the guardsmen who opened fire.

Schroeder was an ROTC cadet. Jesus Christ, these fucking idiots. Now, if you think that was enough to finally chase off protesters, you don't understand how large groups work. Thousands of students flooded into the commons, which had been turned into a killing ground

only seconds before. They were furious. Armed with rocks, bottles, and sticks, surrounded by the dead and the wounded, they wanted revenge. They planned an all-out attack on the guardsmen, who were not backing down either. Somehow I don't even blame them. Me either. Me either. Things were seemingly destined to get worse when geology professor Glenn Frank rushed out into the field of the bullhorn and pleaded with the students

to leave the common saying, quote, I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I'm begging with you right now. If you don't disperse, they're going to move in and this can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ.

I don't want to be a part of this. And I guess that's one thing. He had a change of heart and I guess that's one thing. He had a change of heart and wants to actually save the students, hopefully. A large part of the protests were also faculty. And he actually ran in between the two sides to do this. The full recording can actually be heard in Kent Burns' Vietnam documentary, which is like a nine-part fucking outstanding. I've seen a couple of the parts.

He literally put himself in between of the two sides. After about 20 minutes of tension, the students finally retreated. Frank's own son, who was on the commons with the students today, estimated that his dad probably saved hundreds of lives that day.

They absolutely were going to attack the guardsmen the guardsmen were absolutely going to shoot back again and pure numbers alone said the guardsmen were eventually going to lose that fight and be fucking beaten to death sadly knowing um some of the people that i have served with um you you have your you have your rules of engagement you have your you know obviously your morals and military ethics and right all that stuff but i i know so many soldiers that if a person in the leadership position just turned around and opened fire on a group of people without any cause or or anything they would turn around and support him without any reason.

And that's if they weren't given an order, which is a controversy that survives to this day. And we'll talk about a little bit later. But it's generally accepted that Pryor was the first one to shoot or generally accepted by some people that Pryor gave the order to shoot. There's such thing as a lawful and an unlawful order, though. Absolutely. Which brings in a lot of, how do you say, backlash,

but not to the people you'd expect. Now, in certain circles, the protesters and the anti-war movement have been framed as enemies of the country, enemies of democracy, quitters, bums, hippies, you name it. The president himself called them bums after the shooting, leading to, I believe it was Alison Krauss' father

saying my daughter was not a bum at her funeral. was not a bum uh at at her funeral so so um how fucking how devastating is that that your daughter died in this just horrible circumstance and then like my daughter is not a bum that's that's your words like now um instead of saying this is gonna get better let's go to the next paragraph so there's a lot of immediate reaction uh nationwide to this as you can imagine uh the first national student strike took place which involved four million people a hundred thousand people marched to the capital causing president n Nixon to be evacuated for his own safety. He went to

Camp David. There was also an outbreak of violence in New Mexico, where guardsmen bayoneted students again. Another in Mississippi shooting left two students dead. I believe that time it was the police, not soldiers. So, I know what you're saying.

These guardsmen went to prison, or were were demoted or something happened, right? I never thought that for a second. That's where I get to say like I do in every episode. Wait, it gets worse. Also immediately after the shooting, the Ohio National Adjutant General claimed his soldiers had been fired on by protesters. There's absolutely zero evidence ever brought forward that proves anyone other than guardsmen fired that day.

The only person in the crowd that was determined to be armed was an FBI agent who was in plain clothes and wearing a gas mask. Initial newspapers actually said a number of guardsmen had been killed or wounded as well. This is absolutely untrue. And that's actually something I've seen parroted about in certain historical visions and circles to this day. During the four days of unrest at Kent State, one guardsman,

a sergeant by the name of Lawrence Schaefer, was hurt enough to ever require medical attention per Ohio National Guard records. The same Lawrence Schaefer should be noted that he bragged after being the man who shot and killed Jeffrey Miller. He's the body of whom in that famous photo I just showed you.

A Gallup poll taken immediately after the shooting showed a full 58% of people in the United States blamed the students for the shooting while only 11% blamed the guard States blame the students for the shooting. While only 11% blame the guard and 31% just didn't care. Of course.

We always blame the victims. The military is never wrong, folks. They never do anything wrong. Right. And this is where I kind of butt heads with people that talk about like the weird personality cult we have around the military now is a direct uh over correction from vietnam it's like well the fucking national guard never went to prison for kent state nobody went to prison for my lie um so uh students returning from kent state and other universities got a hostile reaction upon returning home. Some were told that more students should have been

killed to teach the students a lesson, and some students were disowned by their families. Teach the students a lesson for exercising their fucking rights? They did it the wrong way. They did it the wrong way. Against the government? That's what you protest against. You protest against the government. What other reason is there to

protest? No, Rich. You take to the streets to say how much you protest against. You protest against the government. What other reason is there to protest? No, Rich. You take to the streets to say how much you love daddy. That's my next move. On June of 1970, the Commission on Campus Unrest was established by Nixon in hope that it would contain the outpouring of anger being directed at him, as well as legitimize the harsh police and National Guard usage on protesters, who Nixon, like I said, openly called bums and communists. In that,

he failed. He failed spectacularly. The commission issued its filing in September of the same year. Nixon assumed it would take significantly longer, and it only took him a couple months. The commission said, quote, even if the guardsmen face danger, it was not a danger that called them to use lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.

Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill if a fire order was given the kent state tragedy must mark the last time as a matter of course loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators yeah you think that should have there should have never been a first time who thought that was a good idea fucking loaded rifles and bayonets are you kidding me so that was one of the things the the commission also found is like, they're like, okay, what riot control training and equipment did the national guard have? The answer, none, none at all.

They were never trained. If you notice none of those units that I named were MPs, they were, they had my job. They were fucking cav. I can't. Could you imagine me breaking up a fucking protest? No, but you were an MP.

I was an MP unit. I mean, I never got any fucking goddamn riot control training. I can't. I mean, yeah. So that was like, the commission was like so what tools did you have and the guard just kind of just shrugged

like the shrug emoji um so of all the so all this means that there's some must be some kind of legal repercussion right like if you look at uh the problems with lethal force in America today if there's a whole

bunch of people saying nope that was totally the wrong thing then like they go to court right uh that happened actually that totally happened uh so in september 1974 eight guardsmen eight were indicted by a grand jury okay that, that's something, right? Now let me read the next paragraph. All of the guards then said that no order to fire was ever given. Instead, they fired in self-defense. They claimed because the students were charging at them. Now, the prosecution pointed out correctly that not a single one of the students ever got closer than 60 feet away. And they didn't have lethal weapons! The average distance of the students ever got closer than 60 feet away. And they didn't have lethal weapons.

The average distance of the students who were killed were 375 feet away. They didn't have lethal weapons. The judge in the prosecution could not prove that the guardsman willfully intended on depriving the students of their civil rights. That would be the civil right to fucking live the fuck does that even mean uh the guardsman argument was totally accepted by the court and all charges were dismissed this is despite the fact the same judge that presided over the case a judge batista batisti i'm probably butchering that is it b-A-U-T-I-S-T-E? No.

Totally accepted that at no point were the guardsmen's life at risk that day, and they grossly and unlawfully used force against the students. He still dismissed the charges. What the fuck? This also may have not been the most fair court on earth. Afterwards, Paul Mack, one of the jurors,

vigorously shook hands of James McGee,gee one of the guards guardsman that was on trial and said quote i'm so glad it turned out this way for you now you can go back to your normal life disgusting uh now it it has not been proven that james mcgee actually shot and killed or wounded anybody but he was one of the people on trial who fucking cares cares? That's disgusting. People are dead and wounded. Now let me go back to that tagline, and now it gets worse, which brings us to the civil case. The National Guard, the state of Ohio, president of Kent State, and the governor were all sued for wrongful death. One of the people put on the stand at the civil trial was none other than Marion prior. The first sergeant who is widely reported being the first person to shoot that day,

uh, on the stand. He said he never gave orders to fire, nor did he fire his sidearm. He also claimed that he had no idea the students were carrying the students. The soldiers were carrying live ammunition, something so absurd that actually caused the judge to laugh at him

excuse me eventually the case first sergeant didn't know what kind of ammo his soldiers were carrying he didn't know they had ammo at all which it which again was so absurd that the judge laughed at him in court

on on record he laughed at him in court on, uh, on record. He laughed at him. Come on now. Uh, eventually the case was settled in the amount of $675,000 for each dead student. Uh, another part of the settlement was the guardsman had assigned a letter of

regret. Mind you, nowhere in it does it apologize or accept blame for any part of the shooting. It says they quote regret the events of that day which brings us to the last part of our story uh was there really no order to fire given that day uh because some people say there was uh depends on who you talk to dozens of soldiers present on the hill that day report being ordered to fire some say they're

ordered to fire over the protesters heads while others leave that part out others say they're told to fire if the protesters kept coming towards them that order is generally blamed on none other than first sergeant prior despite the fact there were officers present. A Lieutenant Dwight Sinn reports hearing the commander of Gulf Troop ordering his soldiers to fire. If you look at videos of the event that day and you read firsthand accounts, it certainly looks like a group of soldiers following orders to do something all at once. The body of soldiers move as one in step and they fire as one. Only after the initial volley do they kind of patter out to an undisciplined shot here and there.

Actually, George Schultz, the Secretary of Labor in Nixon's cabinet at the time, and a World War II Marine artillery captain, viewed the film at the Kent State shooting. And rather than support his president's claims that the Guardsman shots were random, Schultz said, quote, I know a fusillade when I see one, and that was a fusillade. Which brings us all the way to 2007 when shooting survivor named alan canfora reported that he found a student recording of the time that proves an order to fire was given uh now full disclosure on alan canfora pretty much ever since the events of um of the shooting he has gone on record time and time and time again uh that an order of fire given was given um that's kind of his whole thing and that's something he has been working to prove so he's not exactly unbiased and i've heard the video uh which i will put at the end of

this podcast for you to judge um whether you think Order to Fire is given. I am unconvinced, and I will let you listen to it afterwards as well. So a 30-minute reel-to-reel tape was made by a student named Terry Strub, which is now known as the Strub Tape. He was a Kent State comms major who was recording from his dorm window with a microphone uh in 2010 an audio analysis of the tape by experts revealed a male voice allegedly yelling quote all right prepare to fire after four shots from a pistol this kind of makes sense if you pair it with witnesses uh accounts that say prior opened fire with this pistol before everybody else. But also I have some gripes with the idea that this is an order because

that's not an order to fire. That's not drill and ceremony orders at all. Also, I can't hear that in the tape. Well, not only that, like the the focus on the fact that there had to have been an order to fire seems a little bit misplaced. Considering firing at all into a group of unarmed fucking citizens is wrong, whether you're ordered to or not.

Sure. That seems like that seems like you're focusing on the wrong thing there. Well, I mean, I get I get that you're trying to like you're focusing on the wrong thing there well i mean i get i get that you're trying to like place it on one person like if if prior gave the order then that kind of puts the blame on him but no it's definitely the blame of all the soldiers yeah you can't play you can't play the nuremberg defense here no i am the the main reason i'm talking about that is because it certainly looks like an order was given. As much as I would totally accept spontaneous firing from a large group of soldiers, because it happens.

I've been involved in situations of spontaneous firing where a soldier next to me is firing. I definitely didn't fucking see anything, but I shot in the general direction too. Probably in an actual war zone and not on American soil. Sure, but at the same time, if you look at pictures and you look at eyewitness accounts, this was not spontaneous firing. It was a volley. Rifles were leveled and then all at once they went off. And only then was it sporadic.

That's why I think the concept of an order to fire is compelling. But I don't buy Canfora's explanation that is in this video because I don't hear it. Because now you have to think there's thousands of people out on this common area. Thousands of people. All of them are pissed. Thousands of students are screaming at hundreds of National Guardsmen. What are the fucking odds that this 1970s era microphone being dangled from a window caught the orders of one first sergeant and nothing else? Yeah, that's...

That is like the Kennedy assassination magic bullet theory of audio technology. I will put it at the end, so that'll be up to you to believe that if it's something you really think is being said, I don't fucking buy it.

I watched several people talk about it i don't hear what they're saying it's like uh that like the ghost white noise type shit where people like oh i totally heard that there's fucking subtitles under it that's how your brain works um so uh in 2012 the justice department said that no further action would be taken into the investigation, um, based on the strobe tape. Um, but you know, who did go to trial after all this 25 people who were accused of burning down the ROTC building, uh, they went on trial in the seventies, uh, a couple of years after

the, um, the building was burnt down. This included 24 students and one faculty member that were picked out of photos. All of the charges against them were dropped, and the only person ever convicted of burning down the ROT student was not a guy who went to the college at all, meaning more people went to jail for burning down a building and killing four unarmed american citizens i'd like to say that i'm surprised yeah i'm not surprised either um yeah so that's it there's no happy ending here everybody had a who had a hand in murdering unarmed college kids remains

a free man i could not find anything of like where the fuck these people are now. Nobody has accounts from them. I found like one account of like unnamed Ohio national guardsmen from the 1980s. Nobody is able to find these dudes anymore. So first Sergeant Myron prior prior. He's a donkey. He's probably, Oh,

he's definitely donkey. I would say that governor is cause he's the one who commanded them to be there that day. They're all fucking donkeys. Nixon's a donkey. Uh, Nixon's a a donkey. I would say that Governor is, because he's the one who commanded them to be there that day. They're all fucking donkeys. Nixon's a donkey. Nixon's a fucking jackass. Yeah, I think Governor Rhodes later on said he did not regret seeing the National Guard there,

even though his orders killed four people. Gotta double down, man. Yeah, yeah. So that's our incredibly depressing show today. As always, Rich, thank you for joining me. I have to say one thing. Shoot. This table,

this beer pong table that you have replaced your little card table with. It's the future of the podcast it's disgusting it needs to be clean there's literally dried beer all over it uh that's on brand it's gross uh so thank you thank you for joining us thank you for having me hey guys like i said before uh this episode's gonna end with a news clip that shows what is purported to be the national guard's order to fire on the students now i don't hear it uh myself um and honestly since this is a news clip and it has like uh like the text over of what the audiologist says is what's on there obviously we can't include that because this is an audio platform. But I want you to listen to this and tell me if you hear it. If you don't, you don't.

I think you're less likely to hear what they want you to hear, what they purport to hear without the subtitles that are on the YouTube video, which is pulled from an NBC news article, news video. Sorry. So listen to it. Tell me what you think. Thanks for tuning in. This iconic image is synonymous with America's internal battle over the Vietnam War. Tear gas and bullets 42 years ago this week at Kent State University. Four students were killed, nine others injured when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire during an anti-war protest. Alan Canfora took a bullet through one of his wrists. So I looked down and I could not believe that I had been shot. It was

an unbelievable moment, like a nightmare. In a sense, he says he's been wounded again. Just before this week's anniversary of the event, the Justice Department sent Canfora a letter denying a request to reopen the case. The central mystery since 1970 has always been, was there or was there not an order to fire? A federal civil rights case against the guardsmen was dismissed in 1979. The Justice Department now reveals the FBI destroyed an original reel-to-reel recording of the shooting.

But a digitally enhanced review of a copy of those tapes has revived the question. Audio engineer Stuart Allen analyzed the tape for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He claims the fatal volley was preceded by four shots from an unknown source. Fourth gunshot, most important. Here's the echo from it. 70 seconds later, Stewart says there's a command to fire, followed by 67 gunshots. Listen again. I don't know about you, but I get chills when I hear that.

What do you feel? What a waste. And hopefully, by bringing the truth out here, this will never, ever happen again. The Justice Department calls its own review of the words and sounds unintelligible with no consensus. Allen says this isn't about prosecuting anyone in the National Guard. It's about setting history right. We're seeking healing and we're seeking reconciliation. Canfort and his supporters plan to ask the Justice Department to take another look,

meet with Ohio's governor and take legal action, hoping the mystery surrounding the shootings may one day be solved. Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.