You are correct, my use of the word surround was inaccurate. They were
facing them. Do you think the guardsman were not aware that the students
had attacked the fireman for trying to put out the fire the students had
started? I know that would scare the hell out of me.

It was a scary situation for most of the guardsman, and most of the students
at Kent State.

I have never said the Guardsman were justified in firing their guns, I said
it was done by young kids (who enlisted into the National Guard as a way to
get out going to Viet Nam). They were faced with a situation they were not
qualified to handle and were scared to death. As Gould pointed out, if the
students wanted to, they could have overwhelmed the National Guard..

If you believe the National Guard fired on the students because they
disagreed with the students position on the war, and decided to murder them,
there is not much for me to say.

My guess is everyone involved in this tragedy have nightmares about it


"DSK" wrote in message
. ..
John Smith wrote:
I don't listen to Rush, Fox News, or Hannity. Below I have copied the
order
of events from the Kent May 4 Center www.may4.org. A web site to
remember those killed at Ohio State, so hopefully it will not happen
again.

I can't imagine many 18 - 21 yr old soldiers who would not be scared to
death. If you saw pictures of the students yelling at the guardsmen and
the
guardsman faces you would agree they were very scared.

How about the pictures of kids putting flowers in the Guardsmen's
rifles? That must have been scary too.

Yelling is not the same as shooting. When a man yells at you, you are
not allowed to shoot him in self-defense. There were rocks thrown, and
some of the students threw back tear gas cannisters (which fell short)
fired at them. Basically, the crowd of protestors was dispersing when
the Guardsmen opened fire. IMHO it was murder.

Thanks for posting the quote from the may4.org web site. It corresponds
pretty well with what I remember, except that some of the student
leaders later apologized for attacking the firemen and the court
decision that the soldiers were "ordered" to fire was widely considered
a whitewash since the "order" was given by "person or persons unknown."

BTW please note that this factual account does not ever once mention the
students surrounding the soldiers. Please acknowledge this error in your
earlier post.

DSK