How Many DUers Actually Remember the Kent State Killings?

[Trust Buster]

19. I was living 20 minutes away from Kent State and still do.

I was in the fifth grade. That afternoon our teachers unexpectedly ushered us students to the front lawn of our elementary school. I thought that odd because we always assembled in the back of the school in the playground area. It was that day in the spring when the sun is so warm on your face that you realize that winter is officially over. I can still remember how the sun felt on my face that day.

Anyhow, the teachers did their best to explain the Kent State shootings to us in the context of the overall war. But, we were fifth graders and really didn’t understand. I don’t know why the school didn’t leave it up to our parents to discuss the shooting if they deemed it necessary.

In the decades that followed, I have had many friends and family attend Kent State and I have partied many times on campus. One night, after multiple bong hits, we went to the hill that the Ohio Guard shot down upon the students from. As I looked down that night to where the students were relative to the hill, the surreal nature of the situation sunk in.