Kent State and Me — a personal memoir

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In turn, this anger, outrage and fear led to massive anti-war gatherings in Washington, DC, just a few hundred metres from the White House. Then-President Richard Nixon remained locked in the presidential mansion, complaining bitterly to staff and family that he could get no peace from the raucous sounds of the demonstrators protesting against what had become his war.

But why — and how — did the tragedies at those two otherwise unremarkable educational institutions become deeply symbolic of the larger national anguish in 1970? Part of the reason, of course, lies in the increasingly universal impact that the war was having on young Americans. By that year, the country had already been undergoing years of increasing agony over the ever-growing, never-ending, indeed, “unfinishable” war in Vietnam that was consuming the lives of thousands of Americans (not to mention many more South Vietnamese soldiers, Vietcong insurgents, North Vietnamese regular troops, and, of course, all those legions of innocent civilians caught in the middle of it). 

By 1970, there were more than half a million American military personnel stationed in Vietnam. According to the advice of the generals, given to succeeding presidents and their aides, and repeated frequently over the years, the war would be winnable with just a few thousand more fighting men, or the expansion of bombing operations over North Vietnam, or some combination of both. But neither — or both — ever seemed to bring the promised land of a military success. 

And so, in a throw of the military dice and aiming at a lateral solution, Pentagon planners had determined the way to both tactical and strategic advantage over their enemy was to cut off Vietcong supply lines that ran through southern Laos and on into Cambodia. Such a move would also disrupt the rear area supply bases and rest areas situated in the forests of the relatively sparsely inhabited eastern Cambodia used by Vietcong fighters and regular North Vietnamese army units fighting alongside them. 

There was a problem for the Americans in this, however. Cambodia was an officially neutral nation in the conflict. For many years, its leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had managed through an adroit diplomatic dance to keep the country out of the fighting in Vietnam (and Laos) by proclaiming Cambodia’s neutrality, even as his government turned a blind eye to the shadowy presence of Vietcong troops and their supply lines in Cambodia.

But apparently fortuitously for the Americans, early in 1970, Sihanouk was overthrown by a Cambodian general, Lon Nol, who was friendlier to US military adventures. Accordingly, American plans to attack the Vietcong in the Cambodian region known as the “Parrot’s Beak” and nearby territory in order to disrupt those supply lines and rear area rest and resupply zones could be activated. The area was named the Parrot’s Beak because of its resemblance on a map to such a shape, as it jutted into South Vietnam. 

The initial attacks were carried out by South Vietnamese regular troops and then further attacks were carried out by American troops several days later. To opponents of the war in America, this was a demonstration that in the Nixon administration, the US military’s intention (despite Nixon’s campaign promise back in 1968 that he had “a secret plan for peace”) was to enlarge the zone of conflict in Indochina, rather than bring the ongoing war to a conclusion. Crucially for young adult men in America, together with the continual expansion of the contingent of US troops engaged in that war, this attack on the Parrot’s Beak made the possibility of being drafted to fight a war few wished to be part of that much more likely than it already was.

For most American males in universities and colleges, let alone for those in the beginnings of civilian careers, the idea of being drafted to slog it out in “The Big Muddy” was a terrifying prospect. The pressure was to somehow maintain a deferment from the military draft for as long as they were students, but such deferments only lasted as long as they could keep up with studies at a satisfactory pace. However, the draft boards throughout the country (one in each county) were becoming increasingly pressed to identify students who had dropped behind the required pace for any reason in order to meet their quotas for new inductees. 

As word of the attacks on Cambodia spread across the country, spontaneous demonstrations also took place on many university campuses. This was the case even at schools where student political activism had previously largely been limited to smallish cadres of ultra-committed, anti-war students and supporters of varied left-wing causes more generally. Even at my university, at the University of Maryland, while anti-war demonstrations were rare, there were some activists. For example, a small group of such students had joined with other volunteers from other universities to go to Cuba to help cut sugar cane. 

But despite the University of Maryland’s generally lethargic tradition of protest, as was the case, too, at Kent State University, the attack on the Parrot’s Beak brought out large numbers of students to find a way to protest the newly expanded war. In dealing with such demonstrations, nervous officials quickly sent in local police units to patrol those demonstrations and then, as things continued, inevitably reinforcements were called in to put a stop to things. Kent State University, in the small city of the same name, had never been seen as a location for mass demonstrations or protests previously.

At Kent State, the authorities eventually called up for active duty units of the Ohio National Guard (army reserve units not on active duty, many of whose members were in the National Guard precisely in order to avoid being drafted into the Regular Army and thus likely to be sent to Vietnam). After the campus had been the site of three days of demonstrations and a suspicious fire on a campus building, the National Guard was sent on to the campus. In Maryland, from 1 May, the state’s governor was similarly determined not to look soft on demonstrators and Maryland State Police riot control units were rushed into duty at the campus.