Tragedy at Kent State: when National Guard troops killed four students at an anti-war protest, it brought the horror of the Vietnam War home to America.

• Author: Brown, Bryan
• Position: TIMES PAST 1970

Before May 4, 1970, few Americans had heard of Kent State University, a college in a small Ohio city. Today, the name is forever linked to a shocking event: During a campus protest against the Vietnam War, National Guard soldiers fired into a crowd of student demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.

Laura Davis, a Kent State freshman at the time, remembers the sense of disbelief. "To think that American soldiers would shoot students on their own campus--that was unthinkable," she says.

The shootings at Kent State instantly symbolized the nation's stark division over Vietnam. For many Americans it became "the day the war came home."

U.S. involvement in Vietnam had begun in 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent military advisers to South Vietnam to help it in its fight against the Communist North (see Timeline, p. 18). In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in ground troops, eventually totaling more than half a million; by the spring of 1970, about 50,000 of them had been killed.

Unlike previous wars, this one played out on television, with Americans seeing the horrors of battle beamed into their living rooms. The daily brutality galvanized young people, especially college students, to demand an end to the war and the draft. Since 1973, the U.S. has had an all-volunteer army. But during Vietnam, able-bodied men ages 18 to 26 had no choice but to fight if they were called up.

"Many Americans, particularly younger Americans, questioned why we had to shed our blood in such a small, far-off country that was of no threat to us," says historian Philip Caputo. "Other Americans deeply believed that the war was [a necessary battle in] the Cold War. These Americans regarded the former as cowards and traitors."

The War Escalates

In 1969, President Richard Nixon took office promising to end the war. He brought home more than 100,000 troops by the end of that year, but on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced that the U.S. had invaded Cambodia, South Vietnam's neighbor, to attack Communist forces there. The news that the war was still expanding sparked new protests around the country. At Kent State, students held a rally on Friday, May 1, and made plans to demonstrate again on Monday, May 4.

All that weekend, tensions on campus ran high with confrontations between students and police. On Saturday evening, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) * building, a symbol of pro-war sentiment on campus, was burned down. (It's still unclear who was responsible.) Ohio Governor James Rhodes called out the Ohio National Guard to restore order. University officials announced that the Monday rally was banned--but most students either didn't know about the ban or ignored it.

Sometime around noon on May 4, about 500 protesters gathered on the campus Commons. Some 2,500 other students were either watching the protests or simply trying to get to class. As soon as the rally began, the Guard tried to disperse the crowd. About 100 soldiers marched with bayonets on their rifles, scattering the protesters. The soldiers shot tear gas, which blew back across the Commons.

As protesters retreated, many hurled insults at the Guardsmen. Some threw stones or lobbed back tear gas canisters, though most students were too far away to reach the soldiers.

Alan Canfora, then a junior, told Upfront he stayed close enough to shout at the soldiers as he waved a black flag. "My friend just died in Vietnam, and we want to stop that war," he recalls yelling. Even when some Guardsmen knelt to aim their rifles, Canfora didn't believe they would shoot.

By then one group of 70 soldiers had come up against a fence at one end of the campus. They appeared to be heading back to their starting point at the ROTC building and ending the confrontation. But suddenly, 28 of these soldiers stopped, turned around, and opened fire. Most shot into the air or the ground. But eight of them did not.

The volley of shots--67 in total--lasted 13 seconds. "When they stopped shooting, there was a split second of just silence," says Canfora, who took a bullet through the wrist. "Then you started hearing students screaming out in pain and people calling for ambulances, and other people screaming at the Guardsmen, calling them murderers."

When it was over, four students were dead, including two who weren't involved in the protests (see photos, p. 17). Nine students were wounded, one of them paralyzed for life.

When the Guard commander threatened to charge again, the students finally dispersed. Laura Davis, who had taken shelter in one of the campus buildings, went home. She was still in shock later when her father came home.

"They should have shot all of them," he told her. "Don't you know that one of those people would have been me?" she replied. Her father didn't answer.

One photo of the shootings, taken by a Kent State student, appeared all over the world. It was of Jeffrey Miller, one of the students shot dead, and Mary Vecchio kneeling in despair at his...