Kent State University Incident: The End of the Innocence :: essays papers

Kent State University Incident: The End of the Innocence After a long period of fighting a defensive war in Vietnam, on April 29, 1970, President Richard Nixon launched a full scale attack in Cambodia, which greatly accelerated America ¹s involvment in this conflict. The reaction from the American college student population was one that led into great controversy and heated debates. When Nixon announced his decision on the following day, many people were upset, and thousands of people protested. The end result of one particular protest was bloody, and a perfect example of what terrible shape our country was in during that period of time (Guard Fired in Self Defense). Thoughtless mistakes such as the ones made on that day will often have a snowball affect that lead into problems for all persons envolved. On May 3, 1970 students of Kent State University rallied to protest Nixon ¹s announcement. There was violent protesting all through the night. Windows were broken, cars were destroyed, and the ROTC building was burned to the ground. When the firemen arrived, their hoses were taken by students and used aganist them. At that point Governor James Rhodes called for the National Guard to come in and protect the campus(Four Deaths at Noon). The following day Kent State University was under the  ³protection ² of the Ohio National Guard. Around noon on that day, students fromed in protest. They were told to disperse, but refused. The first action of the National Guard was to release tear-gas grenades upon the masses of students (Guard Fired in Self Defense). These grenades were marginally suscessful, and only caused a temporary retreat. The students then responded by throwing concrerte, rocks, and everything else they could find. This was the first of a group of poor decisions that led to the bloody disaster of May 4, 1972 and all of the other problems associated with the disaster (Kent State Continued). From a distance of about sixty feet from the crowd of students, a member of the National Guard believed that he heard sniper fire. In response to these alleged shots, he opened fire on the students with his M1 .30-06 caliber rifle. He was immediately backed up by several of the men in his squad, all of whome were shooting the same rifle except for one man who shot a military issue Colt .45. When the smoke had cleared, ther had been about thirty-five shots fired, and four of