View, from behind, as Ohio National Guardsmen in gas masks and with rifles as they prepare to advance up Blanket Hill, through clouds of teargas, to drive back Kent State University students during an antiwar demonstration on the university’s campus, Kent, May 4, 1970. Visible at left is Taylor Hall. The protests, initially over the US invasion of Cambodia, resulted in the deaths of four students (and the injuries of nine others) after the National Guard opened fire on students.
In this May 4, 1970 file photo, Ohio National Guard soldiers move in on war protestors at Kent State University in Kent. Four persons were killed and multiple people were wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire. The school had planned an elaborate multi-day commemoration for the 50th anniversary today. The events were canceled because of social distancing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. Some events, activities and resources are being made available online.
Local men witnesses to event where four killed
Today marks the 50th anniversary of one of the saddest, and still unexplained, events in Ohio history.
Three local men were there that fateful day — Kent Miller and Doug McLarnan were both students at Kent State and saw the events unfold, while Rick Day was a member of the Ohio National Guard sent there to break up the protests.
“I don’t forget May 4 very often. I think of it often,” said Miller. “There are three major things that have happened to me in my lifetime. My wedding, the birth of my kids and the shooting at Kent State. Basically, it was a situation that should have never occurred.
“Kent was not really a radical place. A lot of kids went home for the weekends. It was more of a party place, most on campus were not serious about it. It seems to me Governor (Jim) Rhodes wanted to make an example of it. It was a much more pitched battle at Ohio State.”
On Friday, May 1, about 500 students protested the Cambodia campaign and then more trouble started in downtown Kent that evening, as rioters began breaking into stores and throwing objects at the police who were trying to stop the trouble. Several companies of the Ohio National Guard, including Day’s unit, Co. A of the 145th Infantry, which had been trying to quell a truckers strike in Akron for several days, were called in to help the next day. Saturday, the ROTC building on campus burned and the guard members were used to protect what was left.
“The next day (Sunday), we were sitting outside one of the buildings and some students came up and talked with us. Most in the guard were either in college or had graduated. Probably a large percentage, 50 to 60 percent, had been to college. We weren’t just dumb farm boys,” Day said. “The students asked us what we do and sat and chatted. We explained we had live ammunition. The next evening, we basically stood around the ROTC building, which had burned to the ground. Basically, we were guarding the university, making sure the students weren’t creating any problems.”
After a quiet day Sunday, a large demonstration was planned for Monday at noon and that’s when things turned bad.
Miller was on his way to the golf course after class and walked past the increasingly hostile situation. A group of the National Guard had attempted to force the students to disperse, walking up the hill near the Commons and using tear gas to try to break up the large group of protesters.
“I was watching what was going on and one thing led to another. At that point, the guard had stopped because they were fenced in on two sides. A few of the students threw the tear gas canisters back at them. They were yelling profanities,” Miller said. “I remember them (guard members) kneeling and pointing their guns right where I was (about 80 yards away). I said to the person beside me, this isn’t good.”
The guard didn’t fire then. Instead, they got up and returned toward the top of the hill. That’s when it all happened — approximately 67 shots were fired by the guardsmen, killing four and injuring nine others.
“I dove behind a car when the bullets started flying around. It seemed like a long time, but it was only a few seconds,” Miller said. “Someone screamed about 8 or 10 feet behind me. I looked and Allison (Krause, one of the four killed) had been shot. I ran and put direct pressure on her. That’s when chaos took over.”
“I heard shots and could see people running in all different directions,” McLarnan said. “I headed the other direction and saw my hallmate jumping up and down and screaming and yelling. Obviously, several were wounded and there was blood all over. I didn’t know what to do. It was chaotic.”
Day, an E-6, was stationed at the ROTC building, which had burned over the weekend, about 400 yards away from the shootings.
“We sent probably 100 troops up the hill. I was told by my commander to keep the squad at the bottom of the hill. There was no animosity on my part or others talking to the students,” Day said. “Then, all of a sudden, shots were fired. I watched up the hill, about six students came chasing a soldier down the hill. When he got close to us, I could hear them yell, ‘he shot someone,’ so I stopped him. Two of my lieutenants, at the bottom of the hill, one was an Akron police officer, took his gun off him. The cylinder was out and all of the bullets had been fired.”
The policemen took the gun and gave it to the police force.
“I’m concerned about the troops coming down the hill. Some of them were crying. I was trying to get why and realized they were upset because they had fired or someone had fired. No command was ever given to fire, but somebody started firing. It was a tense situation. You had 100 soldiers and about 2,000 students completely surrounding them at the top of the hill.
“(It was) utter amazement. I couldn’t believe they were shooting. We had been in Akron (truckers strike) and shot at, but never fired back. Complete and total amazement. I couldn’t believe they shot. I’m very thankful for where I was. If you were there with your weapon in a very tense situation and the guy beside you fires, what would you do? Probably fire too, but hope not. We were the bad guys and deserving of that. But, when the troops came down the hill, they were very, very upset. They went up that hill with no intention of firing their weapon. It was definitely a sad moment.”
After the shooting stopped, McLarnan ran back into the nearest building and used a payphone to call his mother, who worked at the Mount Vernon News, to let her know he was all right. Miller, after the paramedics arrived, walked in a state of shock back to his dorm room. The campus was closed a few hours later and everyone told to go home.
McLarnan made it home that evening, but Miller had car troubles and ended up walking to a professor’s home to spend the night. He tried to get his car the next morning and was nearly arrested. He got his vehicle going and headed back to his home in the Dayton area, but his parents were in Houston, Texas, on business. An hour later, they had a tearful reunion after they had taken the first plane out of Houston upon hearing the news about the shootings.
Both men spent a lot of time searching their feelings about that fateful day, taking many years before finally figuring things out.
McLarnan, who said he felt completely helpless that day, finally realized those events made him who is he is today when he talked with some people from Kent while on the Kokosing Gap Trail recently.
“I happened to mention to them I had become an EMT. I never really connected that to Kent until then. That helplessness I felt. I never wanted to feel that helplessness again,” McLarnan said.
“I never really broke down and cried or really came to grips with the whole thing for a while — I don’t know why,” said Miller, who said he finally did at the 40th anniversary of that day. “I looked back at the movie, ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ where he came back as an old man to France and relived everything and then broke down. It just so happened, that was the time it occurred to me.”
In Monday’s story on the Kent State shootings, it should have stated that students chased a civilian down the hill, who was stopped by Rick Day and the National Guard who then took a gun from him. The News regrets the error.
