Wow. Fifty years ago today the killing at Kent State U in Ohio. I was in the service at the time and me and my barracks mates were flipped out at what happened. Like many things that have happened since, we couldn't believe this was happening in our country. We all sang along with CSNY when the song came out. It was probably their most iconic moment as a group and remains, IMHO, one of, if not the most iconic song Neil Young has written. David Crosby to this day still looks at this song as one of the best things CSNY ever did. Enough words. Time to give a listen.

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I was 11 and even at that age I remember the shock. It was discussed endlessly in the media for months and months. I am going to guess that it was front-page news for about six months. And there is a silver lining in the societal response to that horrible event. It showed that America is a civilized nation that was totally traumatized by what happened. In some other countries it would barely register.

I was a freshman at Colorado State University and was deeply involved in the anti- war movement.

Kent State made me even more deeply involved!

Being outraged when watching the news with Walter Cronkite

I was a sophomore at Ohio University (athens,ohio). In a few days after the Kent State shooting, riots broke out on campus and all students were ordered to leave campus and go home. This was somewhat difficult for me as I lived in New Jersey ( about 500 miles from campus) and my parents had to drive to and pick me up.

I was a schoolboy,in Greece (9 years old). My country was governed by a military dictatorship,then. A dictatorship supported by Nixon's regime... So,under the conditions of the censorship, information about the fact was very poor, in Greece.
But I remember some people whispering that something terrible happened in the USA...

After all this time. Its seams that nothing has changed. We are still fighting for the same thing.

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More Hot Rocks
After all this time. Its seams that nothing has changed. We are still fighting for the same thing.

I am just going to give you a thought experiment but I am not here to do politics. Just something for you to ponder. A wise person tries to look at both sides of an issue. They were protesting the Vietnam War when that tragedy happened. They have a right to protest.

It's been 15 years since the last original Rolling Stones album. It feels like it went by pretty fast.

It was 14 years between the end of the Vietnam war and the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the eventual dissolution of the USSR. The cold war came to an end. It's possible that without the Vietnam war the USSR would still be here and hundreds of millions of people would not have the freedoms that they have now. It's possible that a Third World War could have happened in that seemingly eternally polarized world.

So it's arguable that even though war is a terrible thing, the Vietnam war was justified. Between that conflict and Ronald Reagan rejuvenating the US Department of Defense in the 1980s - if those two things didn't happen chances are the Soviet Union would not have collapsed, and the world would be a much more miserable and dangerous place today.

This is just a thought experiment for your consideration.

"...the Vietnam war was justified..."

I thought that only Chuck Norris could say that in 2020...

I was a student at Cleveland State University at the time, nearby, finding the shootings shocking, and yet loving the immediacy, the music, and lyrics of the song. Some years later I asked a prof from Kent State who had been on campus at the time and written about the happenings to speak to my sociology classes.

Years after that I was in a motorboat anchored on a lake when my friend broke out "Ohio" in the open air, on his Boombox. I re-experienced the power of the song, the joy of speaking out and the "marching' music mingled with the sorrow. Hearing it always brings me back to the "wow" moment of when it came out, appreciating the genius of Neil Young and his quick creativity, how he merged real world emotion with songwriting.

~"Love is Strong"~

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laertisflash
"...the Vietnam war was justified..."

I thought that only Chuck Norris could say that in 2020...

Norris had a brother that was killed in Vietnam.

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MileHigh

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After all this time. Its seams that nothing has changed. We are still fighting for the same thing.

I am just going to give you a thought experiment but I am not here to do politics. Just something for you to ponder. A wise person tries to look at both sides of an issue. They were protesting the Vietnam War when that tragedy happened. They have a right to protest.

It's been 15 years since the last original Rolling Stones album. It feels like it went by pretty fast.

It was 14 years between the end of the Vietnam war and the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the eventual dissolution of the USSR. The cold war came to an end. It's possible that without the Vietnam war the USSR would still be here and hundreds of millions of people would not have the freedoms that they have now. It's possible that a Third World War could have happened in that seemingly eternally polarized world.

So it's arguable that even though war is a terrible thing, the Vietnam war was justified. Between that conflict and Ronald Reagan rejuvenating the US Department of Defense in the 1980s - if those two things didn't happen chances are the Soviet Union would not have collapsed, and the world would be a much more miserable and dangerous place today.

This is just a thought experiment for your consideration.

The United States' involvement in Vietnam had nothing to do with the end of the USSR. The U.S. misguidedly sought to limit the spread and influence of Communism by inserting itself into a regional conflict meant to unify a nation. You could make a better argument that when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan they got into their own "Vietnam" muck-and-mire type of war that drained their morale and resources, and eventually contributed to the USSR's collapse.

I was hiding from the police for some very extraordinary activities but I am going to let that one dangle right there. But just as a hint, it had to do with fighting back against Babylon system in any way we could.

jb

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loog droog

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MileHigh

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After all this time. Its seams that nothing has changed. We are still fighting for the same thing.

I am just going to give you a thought experiment but I am not here to do politics. Just something for you to ponder. A wise person tries to look at both sides of an issue. They were protesting the Vietnam War when that tragedy happened. They have a right to protest.

It's been 15 years since the last original Rolling Stones album. It feels like it went by pretty fast.

It was 14 years between the end of the Vietnam war and the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the eventual dissolution of the USSR. The cold war came to an end. It's possible that without the Vietnam war the USSR would still be here and hundreds of millions of people would not have the freedoms that they have now. It's possible that a Third World War could have happened in that seemingly eternally polarized world.

So it's arguable that even though war is a terrible thing, the Vietnam war was justified. Between that conflict and Ronald Reagan rejuvenating the US Department of Defense in the 1980s - if those two things didn't happen chances are the Soviet Union would not have collapsed, and the world would be a much more miserable and dangerous place today.

This is just a thought experiment for your consideration.

The United States' involvement in Vietnam had nothing to do with the end of the USSR. The U.S. misguidedly sought to limit the spread and influence of Communism by inserting itself into a regional conflict meant to unify a nation. You could make a better argument that when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan they got into their own "Vietnam" muck-and-mire type of war that drained their morale and resources, and eventually contributed to the USSR's collapse.

I'm more in line with you, loog droog. Apart from the fact that both capitalism and communism suck where it come to honesty toward their people, another fact was that capitalism was doing very well economically in the 70s and on, where the communist countries sort of got stuck in their own system. The gap became too big and underlying restlessness was growing in the east (the people really did know what was going on in the west, even if some say they didn't). So communism had to break open one way or the other. "Vietnam" and "Afghanistan" were totally different entities, where both were manipulated by "representatives" from the other system, but both were of minor importance in the overall global development. Some may disagree, but even China, with it's one party system, is heavily floating on capitalism. I was there in '81, '01 and '03 and saw the immensely huge changes. Reports from my daughter who was there several times much more recently confirm the increasingly changing attitude of the ordinary Chinese people ... f*ck the system, it's money (read: a good life -whatever that means) we want.
Sorry to read about what happened in Ohio 50 years ago, but as a small time European I missed that. The most important thing in 1970 for me was that The Rolling Stones were coming to play in Amsterdam .... and bv, my first ever visit to Norway

Back to Ohio, I was about 9 years old when this happened, but remember it well. My father (a Korean War vet) was upset and that is probably when he (and many others) turned against the war in Vietnam.

Keith Richards said rock and roll and blue jeans had a lot to do with the fall of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe. I think he was correct, in large part.

50 years later, the Kent State University Chorale sings "Find the Cost of Freedom", the B-side of "Ohio".

The Kent State University Chorale - Find the Cost of Freedom

Cristiano - thank you for posting the KSU Chorale cover. Exquisite.

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MileHigh

So it's arguable that even though war is a terrible thing, the Vietnam war was justified.

Another point of view might be :
depite killing 1 million of Vietnamese people eventually you lost against a bunch of people in rags with AK's?
That you didn't learn a single thing from this "counter-guerilla" war and you made exactly the same mistakes in Afghanistan (where you lost another war, again against a bunch of people in rags with AK's)?

I was a slight tickle in my Old Man's pants....

video: [www.youtube.com] Just watched this-got a chill.Was so pissed after this. Lotta flashbacks. Badass times. I went to a march in D.C. buses surrounding white house. Got pepper sprayed arrested etc. Got lucky in the draft lottery though-very high number. Kept protesting though!

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tomk

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laertisflash
"...the Vietnam war was justified..."

I thought that only Chuck Norris could say that in 2020...

Norris had a brother that was killed in Vietnam.

Norris came to visit us in Iraq and although I am not a fan of his he was quite gracious and obviously had much respect for the armed forces. He signed autographs, posed for photos, and chatted for as long as the troops wanted him to. I believe he is also an US Air Force veteran. To answer the OP, I was six and a half years old at the time of Kent State but I do remember everyone freaking out. The invasion of Cambodia did it for my dad. That turned him against the war.

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dcba

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MileHigh

So it's arguable that even though war is a terrible thing, the Vietnam war was justified.

Another point of view might be :
depite killing 1 million of Vietnamese people eventually you lost against a bunch of people in rags with AK's?
That you didn't learn a single thing from this "counter-guerilla" war and you made exactly the same mistakes in Afghanistan (where you lost another war, again against a bunch of people in rags with AK's)?

And another point of view might be more dominos fall and a stronger Warsaw Pact and NATO tear into each other and 175 million people die and two-thirds of Europe is a nuclear wasteland and will be uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years. Who really knows. The democracies pushed back against communism and they won and Vietnam was a big part of the push-back. And that makes the difference between walking into a store and getting a cell phone in 15 minutes versus applying for a land line phone and having to wait 10 years to get one. Perhaps Jay Leno's Garage (great YouTube channel) features the Trabant in one of his clips.

kindergarten

Pre-K

Well if the "kindergarten" and "pre-k" comments are about me what I don't see is any attempt to make an argument using logical reasoning when you disagree. It's more of a brain-numbing "I don't have to make an argument because of course I am right and everybody must agree with me." The fact remains that Europe was teetering on the edge of a massive conventional war fought with tens of thousands of modern tanks and missiles on both sides. If one side gained a significant tactical and strategic advantage then there was the real possibility that the other side would launch nukes, resulting in a retaliation strike. Even schoolchildren can understand this when it is explained to them. The Soviets got their asses kicked in Afghanistan because in large part the US was providing missiles to the native Afghans. I am sure many people saw the movie. And Vietnam was part of this geopolitical struggle. Again, there was only 14 years between the end of the Vietnam war and the beginning of the breakup of the communist Eastern Block. It's something worth pondering instead of simplistically saying "war is bad." There was a huge war in Korea for the same reasons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-05-07 04:18 by MileHigh.

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I was a 5 year old in Huntington, New York. I remember seeing the photo of the young woman with her hands outstretched over the body of someone who appears lifeless in my parents’ copy of Life Magazine. I mostly led an idyllic childhood, but even at that age I knew that something terrible had happened and that this was much more serious than whatever shenanigans the Partridge Family were up to.

What I’m curious about is if this was such a pivotal turning point for so many in our parents’ generation against the war, why did Richard Nixon get re-elected in a landslide, and why did the war drag on for three more years? Nixon had gotten elected in 1968 promising to end the war. How was he not held accountable?

video: [www.youtube.com] Little flashback

Another little flashback from essentially the same time:

video: [www.youtube.com] Another One