Voices of the Wounded

Joseph Lewis was a Freshman at Kent State in 1970. He was against the US invading Cambodia during the Vietnam war. He attended the protest that was taking place on his collage campus with good intentions. Two bullets entered him, and Josephs parents believed that he had done something wrong to deserve it. It took a bit of time to convince them that what they had read in the news paper was not what happened that day. The bullets that hit Joesph went into his lower right abdomen and about six inches above his left ankle. He was close to dying from these injuries. After being in the intensive care unit, Joseph dropped out of Kent State University. He moved to Oregon two years later.
Jim Russel was a senior at Kent State when the shootings happened. He was hit in the right thigh and above his eye. After he was shot, he stumbled into Lake Hall where their were two student nurses. The secretary of that hall was rude, and tried to stop the nurses from helping Jim who was bleeding immensely. He had to wait for an ambulance to return on campus to take him to the hospital. After the shootings in 1975, Jim left Ohio and moved to Oregon, like Joseph, where he felt more 'part of a system'. Many things changed after the shooting, and many elders in the Kent State community looked down upon him because they believe he was part of the 'problem'. He and his dad both lost their jobs from being associated with the protest.
I don't agree with the way many people looked at the shooting. Most elders believed what they were reading in news papers such as the people who protested were the 'worst kind of people'. How were they bad when they were protesting an invasion? That's my question to them. I understand that the town was scared the students and other violent protesters may threaten the state, and that is why the national guard was called. But, why did the national guard open fire at unarmed students? They cry self defense, I cry unfair government. Their shooting was not justified in my eyes and I don't believe it ever will be.


Sources: http://www.burr.kent.edu/archives/may4/shot/shot2.html
http://www.burr.kent.edu/archives/may4/shot/shot3.html
http://kent.state.tripod.com/2009.html

Summary

On May 4, 1970, over 2,000 Kent State College Students rallied in the 'commons' at their College Campus. Their purpose was to show President Nixon that he should not extend the Vietnam war into Cambodia. They wanted to 'bring the war home'. The events leading up to the protest such as vandalism, upset the State Officials, which closed down bars in town and called the National Guard.
The day of the protest, University Officials attempted to ban the gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets saying the protest was not going to happen. Despite their efforts, over 2,000 students gathered on the Universities commons near Taylor Hall.
As my project and research furthers, I will talk more about the events that happened on May 4th, and how the Nation Guard reacted. I know if I were a teenage then as I am now, I would have been at that protest.