Kent State 24 Years Later

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CavTroop
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Post by CavTroop »

Malarkey:
Good job! Not exactly a cut-and-dried thing was it? Hope you learned a lot from Ranger Steadfast's assignment.

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Looon
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Post by Looon »

Great job. Thanks for the history lesson guys. 8)
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Runner
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Post by Runner »

Thanks to both of you and yeah you're right CavTroop, wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be. I learned a lot about May 4th and teamwork too from all of the DEPs and Newts that helped.

Thanks,
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Jim
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by Jim »

I found this old thread, and just wanted to add that when I started Ranger School in April 1971, the LT who was the Kent State ROTC student Battalion Commander was in my class. He broke his leg on the jump into Mountain Camp. What an ironic way for him to bust out of Ranger School.
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by IntelToad »

Jim, I'm interested in what you thought when the shooting happened ? What was your perspective being an officer and coming back from Vietnam ? What do you think went wrong (or right) from the National Guard's perspective ?

I was born in 1967 and I remember seeing Vietnam on the news when I was older, but none of this. Now seeing documentaries, it seems like a time we can't comprehend unless we lived it.

Blueliner was at Kent State over Thanksgiving weekend for a hockey tournament which they have played in since he was in 10th grade. They always do a tour of the campus and the shooting site, I'm interested to hear what he thinks.
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Jim
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by Jim »

IntelToad wrote: November 29th, 2017, 5:34 pm Jim, I'm interested in what you thought when the shooting happened ? What was your perspective being an officer and coming back from Vietnam ? What do you think went wrong (or right) from the National Guard's perspective ?

I was born in 1967 and I remember seeing Vietnam on the news when I was older, but none of this. Now seeing documentaries, it seems like a time we can't comprehend unless we lived it.

Blueliner was at Kent State over Thanksgiving weekend for a hockey tournament which they have played in since he was in 10th grade. They always do a tour of the campus and the shooting site, I'm interested to hear what he thinks.
I was in Cambodia as an advisor to the 42d Vietnamese Ranger Bn. I was in a very sheltered environment. Nixon directed that all Americans had to be out of Cambodia by 30 June 1970, so I left (I was already over my DEROS), departed Viet-Nam on 1 July, 1970. Was home in Pennsylvania, late at night 4 July.

I later learned the Ohio ARNG had been deployed earlier in the month, and had taken some fire. When they deployed to Kent State the ROTC building had already been burned down and the rioters were throwing rocks and bottles. Apparently, someone fired at them and they reacted, using live ammunition, and changed the history of the US.
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al_2ndWolfhounds
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by al_2ndWolfhounds »

I was stationed at Ft .Knox from Jan 70 through Dec 72. After the Kent State "Incident" I was selected to be on the evaluation team from the U.S. Army to evaluate the ability of the Ohio National Guard to conduct Civil Control Operations. We had evaluators for Command & Control, S-1, S-2, S-3 and me for S-4, I was then assigned as the S-4 of the 194th Armored Brigade which was made up of 4 Armored Bns, 1 Mech Inf Bn 1 Air Cavalry Sqdn, 1 SP Arty Bn, 3 Armd Cav Troops and an Engineer company.

For our evaluations we flew into Ohio on Friday nights and then traveled by automobile to visit various NG units throughout Ohio, this took months as we only could visit on Saturdays and Sundays. My part was fairly cut and dry, I inspected and evaluated riot control equipment on hand in each unit.

Our overall evaluation was that the Ohio National guard was better prepared, trained and equipped for riot control than the active army. They actually trained and were equipped for riot control. Further command and control as well as leadership training was recommended.

Interestingly enough I did receive riot control training while I attended OCS at Ft. Benning Ga. during the Detroit riots. With our involvement in Vietnam we had run out of further options for sending more active troops to Detroit. Luckily we were not needed and all my shuffle-foot training was not needed.
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by Jim »

I was assigned to the 82d ABN DIV, 1971 - 1974, and we did a lot of riot control training. In 1973 we deployed to Miami for the convention, but never left Holmestead AFB.
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Re: Kent State 24 Years Later

Post by IntelToad »

Living history, thanks to both of you.
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