Tin soldiers and Nixon

May 2016

On 22 May 2016, I visited Kent State University, the site of the Kent State shootings where, on 4 May 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired upon unarmed students protesting President Nixon and the bombing campaign of Cambodia. The campus has the May 4 Museum, a monument to the students who died and a self-guided walking tour of the shooting site. I was inspired to write the following poem:

TIN SOLDIERS AND NIXON

They sang about 4 dead

On a university campus in Ohio

Sixty-seven shots fired

At students protesting the Cambodian invasion

Free speech can have consequences

But death should never be one of them

All it took was 13 seconds

And 4 young voices were silenced forever

What began as a protest in near the Victory Bell in the Commons

A grassy knoll in the centre of the campus

They were ordered to clear the Commons and refused

So, Ohio National Guardsmen fixed bayonets and advanced

The students retreated up Blanket Hill, past Taylor Hall

The guardsmen followed and after reaching the Pagoda

Fired their rifles on the students gathered in the parking lot below

On that bright sunny day

Jeffrey Miller, Alison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Sheuer

Were killed

Joseph Lewis, Jr., John Cleary, Thomas Mark Grace, Alan Canafora, Dean Kahler, Alan Wrentmore, James Russell, Robert Stamps, Donald Scott MacKenzie were all wounded

While Miller and Krause were active participants in the protest

Scheuer and Schroeder, who was coincidentally a member of the campus ROTC Battalion,

Were simply walking from one class to their next when shot

A cruel twist of fate

Photos of the shooting were distributed across the world, including the photo of Mary Ann Vecchio

Kneeling over the lifeless body of Jeffrey Miller

Screaming out in horror at what she had just seen

Taken by Kent State photojournalism student John Filo

The haunting picture became an ingrained image in the anti-Vietnam movement

A movement that caused the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history

With over 4 million students protested and hundreds of American colleges and universities

Eight of the guardsmen were charged

But all charges were dismissed

A civil suit was launched

In the end, $675,000 was the value of 4 dead and 9 wounded

Thirty-seven years later, a long-lost reel-to-reel tape surfaced

The only known audio-recording of the shooting

Recorded by Kent State Communications student Terry Strubbe

It clearly revealed that an order to fire had been given to the guardsmen

Now all that the dead left behind for their families

Are the photos and memories of their lives

Ones cut down too short

On a sunny day in May

Now a monument to the victims sits beside Taylor Hall, with individual monuments to each of the deceased

Placed at the spot where they fell that day in May

When 13 shots rang out

And the innocence of Kent State ended

: The Pagoda from where the Ohio National Guard fired upon the students, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Historical photo of the Ohio National Guard firing from the Pagoda.

: The Victory Bell in the Commons where the students were gathering, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Historical photo of the Victory Bell in the Commons where the students were gathering.

: The Commons where the students were gathering, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Historical photo of the Commons where the students were gathering.

: Memorial to the 4 who died, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: The view the Ohio National Guard had from the Pagoda to the parking lot where the students were shot, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Pulitzer Prize winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the lifeless body of Jeffrey Miller, taken by Kent State University photojournalism student John Filo, 4 May 1970.

: Taken from approximately the same perspective as John Filo’s famous 1970 photograph as it appears today. May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Historical photo showing the Ohio National Guardsmen chasing students up Blanket Hill towards the Pagoda beside Taylor Hall.

: Looking up Blanket Hill towards the Pagoda where the Ohio National Guardsmen were chasing the students towards the Pagoda beside Taylor Hall, May 2016. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: The Commons where the students gathered, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Looking out at the parking lot between Taylor Hall and Prentice Hall where the students were shot, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Historical photo of a wounded John Cleary, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Approximate location where a wounded John Cleary fell, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

: Parking lot showing the locations where the 4 dead students fell, marked by a raised rectangle of granite and featuring six light-posts approximately four feet high, with the student’s name engraved on a triangular marble plaque in one corner, May 2016, Photo: Bruce Forsyth.