John Filo shot this Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, 14, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was killed by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University.
The culture of the United States had changed dramatically between 1966, when I left for Germany, and 1970, my first full year back in Richmond. Some of the changes were shocking, even though I had read about them -- and even reported on them for American Forces Television.
The country was divided between those who approved of the war in Vietnam and those who didn't, those who were young and those who were old, those who had voted for Nixon and those who voted for Humphrey, those who had long hair and those with crewcuts. People my age wore peace symbols on their jeans and on their denim jackets -- not all, but many of them. Others called the symbol "the footprint of the American chicken."
I had just been discharged from active duty in the Air Force, and it was not easy to break free of the military mindset. What would my new alliances be? Where did I fit in? What, exactly, did I think?
As a reporter, I couldn't betray my feelings on the air. But as a person, I struggled to come to grips with -- to drill down to the core of -- who I now was. Nearly half of the year would elapse before I knew the answer.
The events of 1970 helped to shape me, as, I believe, they did for every other American. We might have been divided into two distinct camps, but what happened that year shook us all.
Here's just a bit of what happened that year. A jury found the Chicago Seven defendants not guilty of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. A bomb being constructed in New York's Greenwich Village by members of the radical-left Weather Underground group exploded prematurely, killing three of its members. The Army charged 14 officers with suppressing information related to the My Lai massacre. U.S. forces invaded Cambodia. In Washington, D.C., 100,000 people demonstrated against the war.
But the event that shattered my faith in the military and destroyed any lingering respect I might have had for the Nixon Administration occurred on May 4. Four students at Kent State University in Ohio were killed and nine were wounded by Ohio State National Guardsmen, at a campus protest against the U.S. incursion into Cambodia.
The images on television that night were horrifying. I had spent the day on the state government beat, but that night's coverage of the Kent State shootings eclipsed the rest of the news. I remember standing in the WTVR TV master control room watching the report on the Cronkite news with tears running down my cheeks. I was also as angry as I think I have ever been. How could our own military kill unarmed students on a college campus? How could this be happening in my own country? If this was acceptable, what values did we actually embrace?
By the time I went home that night, I finally knew precisely where I stood. I wanted the war to be over. I wanted the president out of office. I wanted sanity to replace chaos.
These things did happen, but not for several years.
So what did I do? Not as much as I could have. I was at the next anti-war march on Washington, but it was as a reporter. I voted for McGovern in 1972, but I was on the losing side. I developed a circle of friends who shared my opinions, but we didn't participate in public protests or build bombs or riot. We simply, quietly, seethed with anger.
I have to admit, too, that I was frightened by what was happening in 1970 -- and by much of what had happened since 1966. I knew we would endure, but would anything ever be the same again? The future was a scary place.
The impact of what we loosely call the Sixties (which actually started in about 1965 and lasted until about 1975) changed us all, in some cases for the better and in others for the worse. My fears might seem ludicrous today, in 2010. But that's in retrospect. Today we know how it unfolded. When you're living through it, the outcome is not so clear.
Richmond has long been acclaimed as a hotbed of social rest. (Go back and read that sentence again.) But that wasn't always the case back in the Sixties. One illustrative incident comes to mind.
As antiwar sentiment among those on the left reached its peak, a flyer for a protest rally appeared in the Channel 6 newsroom. The headline proclaimed that an antiwar group would "Kill a Puppy for Peace" at a rally in Monroe Park. Below the headline was an image of a coffin and an appealing picture of a puppy. Naturally, it caught our attention, and I was assigned to cover the story.
No puppy was killed. It turned out to be a run-of-the-mill protest, worth about 30 seconds on the evening news. I don't remember even seeing a puppy.
After all, this was Richmond.
And I have to say that some of the news from 1970 wasn't seen at the time as quite so serious. The Beatles broke up. Ford introduced the Pinto. And on Dec. 23, the North Tower of the World Trade Center topped out at 1,368 feet, making it the tallest building in the world.
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The events of May 4, 1970, probably impacted my life more directly than the events of any other single day.
ReplyDeleteI was devastated that day. Friends later told me that they were afraid I was heading for a breakdown. I just could not believe that our government would kill people for protesting the illegal, immoral war in Southeast Asia and that our leaders, particularly the worst vice-president of modern times, Spiro Agnew, would say, in essence "they got what they deserved."
That evening I sat in a meeting in the first floor lounge of my dorm; in attendance perhaps 100-125 men. The topic was what we should do in response. It quickly came down to one question: should we get up from here and head across campus to burn down the ROTC building? The debate raged for hours and was, of course, very passionate. You can guess all the arguments, pro and con. I never spoke, preferring to listen. I was ready to do whatever the group decided. Let me underscore the meaning of that: I was ready to burn down a Notre Dame building!
In the end we decided not to, pouring our energies instead into non-violent protests and projects. The next day Notre Dame officially went on strike. Not just the students. Not just the faculty, but the university itself. Notre Dame! Notre-fucking-can-we-possibly-be-more-conservative-Dame!! It was an extraordinary gesture during an extraordinary time.
The strike lasted three days and the university formulated a plan allowing students to do almost anything they wanted: we could go back to class and finish the term as usual; we could finish the term but take a pass/fail; we could take Incompletes and be allowed an extra semester to finish the work (two semesters instead of the usual one); we could withdraw from all classes with no penalty.
I chose "none of the above." After a few days of marches, protests, canvassing and meetings I withdrew into my room and eventually packed and left campus. I had planned not to return to ND that fall; the University of Richmond had accepted me as a transfer student. I moved to New York, spending the summer there, the winter in Vermont, and the next summer - 1971 - in New York again before heading to Richmond in August of 1971. UR of course rescinded their acceptance when no final grades came from Notre Dame. I went to VCU instead - very desultorily and never finishing.
I didn't have a breakdown, but my days of protesting the government were over. They have never returned. I did of course channel those energies into my time as a faggot revolutionary, but that was personal.
Like you, Kent State changed my life. It is no exaggeration.