Four Dead in Ohio

Four Dead in Ohio

During the Vietnam Era, National Guard troops fired on college students at Kent State University, in Ohio, on May 4th, 1970. These students were protesting against the war.

Four students died: Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were cut down in the crowd by bullets fired by the National Guard.

Financial reparations did not alter the fact that US government troops shot down American children on American soil. The theories of war do not always translate into logical outcomes.

Ohio Lyrics
by Neil Young


Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

The previous day, President Richard Nixon had committed additional troops to the war in southeast Asia, deploying troops into Cambodia. By 1970, too many men had died for a cause that was not as the Domino Theory had predicted. Communism was not knocking at California's door as had been predicted. However, more soldiers always came from the north, a never ending supply of communist soldiers to fight against those American men called to defend and protect.

Our young men fought, to hold communism at bay, away from home shores. The big picture had us fighting the enemy before he could get to us at home. Vietnam is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, just a hop, skip, and a jump from California--or so it seemed at the time.

Theories of war have changed so that we are not even fighting a virulent visible enemy. Insurgents struggle in a land farther than an ocean away. The death toll again rises, and we are saddened.

Artillery meant to destroy the insurgents kill young children, and destroy buildings and lives over which our nation seeks dominion, to instill freedom. It seems like an oxymoron to me.

Able-bodied men of age had been drafted since the early 1960's, taken from their families and studies, to fight the politically involved
problems left by the French when they pulled out of Vietnam in the late 1960's.

Those outside the experience aren't really able to understand what happened. The outcome that day at Kent State was the destruction of four human lives, humans who protested in an initially peaceful manner, professing their distress against the killing and the escalation of a war that had become unpopular at home.

In listening to the words of Neil Young's account, an errie Nixonesque feeling filters the senses, and I wonder what the future will hold.

If the government should call on the youth of its nation to defend and protect, would they step forward to serve? Or would they protest? Would the government respond as before, having learned nothing from the experience of what is too soon becoming forgotten history?

The Cost of Freedom
by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

Find the cost of freedom
Burried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you
Lay your body down.