Editor’s Note: To learn more about the Kent State Truth Tribunal, please go to www.TruthTribunal.org and to support our efforts.
MendoCoastCurrent, February 2010
Allison Krause was slain at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 by the Ohio National Guard. She was protesting against the VietNam war on her Ohio university campus.
The shots that killed Allison came from the Ohio National Guard that were occupying Kent State University over the first four days of May 1970.
Just before the shots of the Kent State Massacre, the guard turned and marched away from the protesting students. The guard continued up a hill, stopped and then turned in unison. Also in unison, they discharged 13 seconds of 67 armor-piercing bullets from their M1 rifles into a group of unarmed, protesting students, most of them over a football field distance away.
This same troop of guardsmen have continuously claimed that there was not an order to shoot.
Forty years later, everyone involved with Kent State–everyone that has walked this path of horror–knows the truth.
That when the Ohio National Guard marched up the hill and all turned in unison to discharge their weapons in unison…it is evident that it was their intention to shoot as they aimed their weapons at unarmed protesters. Some one made a decision and, as in all military situations, this troop of guardsmen followed orders.
With the advent of findings from a May 7, 2010-reported investigation of the Kent State audio tape by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, new evidence has surfaced to isolate and verify the verbal ‘prepare to fire’ order given by the Ohio National Guard seconds before shooting their weapons.
The trouble is that history does not report the truth at Kent State. And this is the reason for us to gather together for a truth tribunal…to share our stories, personal narratives..to document and honor these truths from all participants.
Allison calls for the national guardsmen to now share their ‘real’ truth at this tribunal. She calls for the truth in 2010!
Allison stood for peace and harmony and she is known for her words, “Flowers are better than bullets.”
This year we all call for the truth to finally be known about what happened at Kent State in 1970!
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The Kent State Truth Tribunal invites your participation, support and tax-deductible, charitable donations. If the Truth at 1970 Kent State matters to you, please join us here.
While reading this article I couldn’t help but think of what is going on in Iran right now…police shooting people down in the street. It is very important that we take a clear headed look at what really happened at Kent State and make sure it can never happen again. Not in our country.
I recall those dreadful times vividly, even after nearly 40 years, and I have no doubt that the order to fire came directly from the then Gov. Rhodes who had been jerking a hard-on to replicate the atrocities his idol – Gov. R. Reagan of California unleashed on the protesting students at Berkeley – calling the students “Monkeys needing a bath, haircut, shave and a trip to the woodshed .” Rhodes, a friend and supporter of Ohio State Football head coach Woody Hays – who fancied himself an expert on military strategy- particularly tank warfare which he likened to football albeit he never served a day in uniform – had, on several occasions, swore he would personally shoot any long-haired crazies that came to his campus to protest what he called a valiant and just struggle against Communist expansion in Southeast Asia conferenced earlier in the morning with Rhodes and proclaimed that this was the opportunity they needed to make a definitive statement as to where the great state of Ohio stood on these lawless thug anti-Americans.
Danzr, your comments are accurate. And I believe Gov. Rhodes rec’d input from President Nixon over those four days in May 1970. I bet the guard created their ‘story’ not more than 15 minutes after they fired 67 shots at unarmed protesting students…and the shooters have stuck to their ‘story’ for almost 40 years now. I wonder how they feel about it now. This year, the expiration date on the cover-up occurs on May 1-4, 2010 at the Kent State Truth Tribunal. Support & join us!
Forty years on and still the authorities refuse to acknowledge the faults made by all the authorities and the Guard Unit deployed to deal with the demonstration. The anti-war demonstration was not by “hippy communist activists” , as the Mayor of Kent would have you believe, but ordinary middle class American students. Students who were intelligent enough to recognise injustice when they saw it and the hypocracy of a government that spoke of freedom, but slaughtered the innocent without a second thought. A situation that has not changed since 1970. The reports of a sniper to excuse their action in shooting down unarmed students seems to rank with so many of the cover ups that military authorities use to cover their own blunders or predujice. This is despite the fact that the news reporter for the New York Times who was present on the day did not hear any shot before they began to volley fire into the student groups. Here in Britain we are no better. So it is important in a free society to voice openly our concerns about government and the ways in which it rides rough shod over the freedoms of those who do not agree with them. It is a denial of the very freedom they extol as a virtue.
The US government never held any accountable for the student murderers at Kent State. Rhodes’ belligerence was rewarded by the electorate with several more terms in office. Does nayone think the protestors in the Middle East think the US provides any form of moral compass? And who is defending the oppressed in China?