Kent State

"To this day no one really knows what happened or how.  Two days before, a Saturday, the ROTC building had been burned down — one of 30 across the nation that first week in May, 1970.  That weekend a state of emergency was declared by the mayor of Kent, Ohio.  Contrary to belief, the governor of Ohio had not yet declared martial law — but might as well have had.  On the morning of Monday, the 4th, students gathered at a football field and adjacent parking lot, their numbers around 200.  By noon they swelled to some 1500.  However, looming above them on a hill was a retinue of the Ohio National Guard armed in riot gear, brandishing bayonets and tear gas canisters.  Ordered by the Guard to disperse, the students refused.  What followed was that seconds-long silence that strangely seems like an eternity, an atmosphere thick with fear and consternation, where no one knows what’s about to happen but that something is.  What actually was the tipping point that escalated this tragedy, none can say, though rumors of course abound.  What’s certain is this: in the fog of the war at home, the Guard fired 67 rounds in thirteen seconds — about as long as that last sentence takes to read.  And in that synapse of power polluted, the lives of four young people were forever taken.  The tear gas was unnecessary; four lifeless bodies and nine others bleeding amidst that feral hysteria was more enough to cause those there to cry."