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Which hardly disproves what I posted. Why does :"I didn't want to shoot that day...But that's what we were trained to do. We should never have been on that campus." countermand the fact that the Guardsmen WERE attacked and shot back? As to the last bit "WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE THAT DAY."......that's utter PC drivel; not to mention ridiculous codswallop...in spades!

As it happens, I was an adult at that time. Even though the damned MSM worked it's usual WHITEWASH "magic" on these events, it WAS pretty much all shown on T.V.; as car chases are today. And no matter how they all tried to cover up what what was/had gone on at Kent State, dribs and drabs of factual truth DID get out to the general public.

And BTW, you haven't answered my query. You don't have to tell me your exact age, but were you over the age of 23, on that date?

Nopardons, I agree. I think this may have been a statement made by one of the young guardsmen AFTER he was charged with manslaughter. In a way he was right: He SHOULD NOT have been there. He shouldn't have had a reason to be there. I don't blame the guardsmen in the LEAST for what happened and I was a "card carrying hippie" at the time. I didn't blame them then either.

Remember, this was before rubber bullets, and other non-lethal mob control methods. These guardsmen were faced by a mob, at very close quarters, that dramatically outnumbered them.

The urban legend of the time was that a female student abruptly reached out, allegedly to "put a flower in the barrel of a guardsman's gun", and he, interpreting the move as a grab for the gun, shot. Then, in the melee that followed, the guardsmen thought they were being attacked.

I always felt there was a "guiding force" behind this whole incident that intended for something like this tragedy to happen. It suited their purposes. Having had some personal experience with the SDS, I can certainly imagine their participation.