A Gallup Poll taken the day after the shootings reportedly ........

[Ping Tung]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Aftermath_and_long-term_effects

A Gallup Poll taken the day after the shootings reportedly showed that 58 percent of respondents blamed the students, 11 percent blamed the National Guard, and 31 percent expressed no opinion.

For me, at the time, that was the most horrifying result. it destroyed the myth of "The land of the free and home of the brave."

[Clouds Passing]

1. Shook me to my core and I was only 10 yo.

The gqp are a dangerous group.

[lark]

2. It was in line with the ethos of the time, they hated us anti-war protestors and we despised them right back.

Same happened with My Lai (?) - so many Americans applauded the outright murder of innocent civilians because who knows, maybe one of them was actually Viet Cong or even just influenced by them. I got in a huge fight at work and almost fired for wanting justice and expecting Americans not to be war criminals while everyone else thought what they did was just fine. Disgusting!!!

[Ping Tung]

4. The troops probably thought they were protecting the country. or "just following orders".

I went to a number of protests at the time. One was put on by veterans. It was peaceful and not very large. I had a utility (aka: fatigue shirt) that I had painted a large peace sign on the back of. A n number of cop cars circled us as we marched around the federal building. One passed and one of the cops in the back seat grinned and pointed a shotgun at me. It wasn't a pleasant grin.

[soldierant]

15. Speaking of My Lai,

I've only read two of Scott Peck's non fiction books - "The Road Less Traveled" and "People of the Lie," so it must be in one of them, and my guess is "People of the Lie."

When My Lai happened, he was working for DoD and living in base housing At that time, when they news came out, ir was as if a dark cloud had just descended over the entire neighborhood. An entire neighborhood with instant PTSD, if you will.

I know there are a lot of veterans who our MAGA - Those of us with heads and heart will tell you they have broken their oath (some of us will say they "dishonored" their oath.) Those of us with heads and hearts who were serving at the time were and are just as sickened as you are. Most of us are allied with VoteVets, even if we can't afford to donate money.

[Midnight Writer]

3. I got into a heated fight with my Dad over this. He blamed the students, of course.

I never saw him as the same man again.

On the plus side, he was a life-long, faithful Democrat who saw right through the Reagan-Conservative Movement bullshit.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. I was at Ohio State and my sister had just graduated from Kent State. The National Guard was sent to OSU to guard the

ROTC building. I was afraid.

[BeneteauBum]

7. I was at the University of Florida

Was told that anyone approaching the Rotcee building would be shot. What a horrific time which certainly shaped my perception of our government.
Peace ☮️

[tritsofme]

6. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming...

[C OH Dem]

8. I blame the damn Governer Rhodes!

Sending in the national guard was overkill.
No pun intended.

[Martin68]

9. I was shocked that my parent thought the shooting was unavoidable, and entirely the fault of the students and

what they called "outside agitators," a codeword for communists. I was a freshmen in college.

[Figarosmom]

10. A lot of people blamed the students.

I remember arguing with someone and they said that the students were throwing stones, and I said if they actually were, that was still no reason to fire on them.(in my mind it was like a primitive civilization throwing stones at a modern army that had them surrounded and how absurd that was)The NGuard had them trapped below them and just shot into the crowd. It still bothers me to this day that those NGuard were willing to do that, and why I don't trust the military to do the right thing now even less.

[bif]

11. An ex-neighbor was in the National Guard there that day

I think we may have discussed it once. Can't remember what his feeling was, although I seem to recall he was pretty conservative.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

12. I was stationed a Camp Pendleton in SoCal at the time,

and I remember the cheering coming from guys in my platoon, I immediately left my office and read them the riot act for cheering such a breach of civil rights, and pointed out to them the Oath of Enlistment they took upon enlistment.

To this day, I still don't understand how they could cheer the deaths of those students when all they were doing was protesting peacefully, a right guaranteed under the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.

Needless to say, I wasn't very popular with my Marines, but I wasn't there for a popularity contest, I was there to defend the Constitution and my country.

[Ping Tung]

14. Good work Sarge.

13. I got out in 1965. A master gunny sergeant was given the hopeless task of trying to get me to reenlist.
Reply to Ping Tung (Original post)
Sun May 4, 2025, 11:04 AM

We knew each other and had talked as friends. In this case we talked about Vietnam and the war LBJ was using to shrine his anti-commie creds. He was against it but was nearing retirement so didn't talk to other guys about his thoughts. He had survived WWII and didn't want anybody to have to go anything like again. Mainly, he just thought that getting stuck in SE Asia was foolish. We shook hands and wished me well.

You did a good job with those wannabee killers. My hat's off to you, gunny.

[JT45242]

16. Until the photo on the cover of TIME

That picture of the runaway high school girl with a dead middle class white student shifted opinions very quickly.

Was at Kent State as a student for the 25th anniversary taking a history of the Vietnam war that semester.

We had to do a paper on the cover up of my lai compared to the Kent State coverup.

It was a fascinating assignment.

Basically the HS bully who couldn't go to college picked out the kid he bullied throughout highschool and told the rest of his unit to kill him.

A lot like today ... Bullies everywhere trying to make other people's lives miserable.

[Warpy]

17. All of us who knewVinamvets and encouraged them to talk

knew that our government was run by a bunch of rabidly anti communist liars and had been for a long time. We all knew that Vietnam was a war that should never have happened, that once they'd booted the French out, that should have been the end of their colonization by a foreign power.

Kent State was a symptom, paranoid men who knew they were in the wrong and terrified because they knew they'd lost control of the young while control of their elders was just starting to slip.

That Gallup poll was taken right after the shooting. However, that shooting, once Middle America had a chance to remember those pictures and what they meant--squeaky clean white kids being shot by the government--it had the opposite effect of what men like Nixon and Ohio Gov. Rhodes had intended. When I think of turning points, I think of Kent State as a big one, but it took a while to sink in.