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OT: 4 Dead in Ohio!!

recruitsreadtheseboards

recruitsreadtheseboards

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Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of this massacre. I read a fantastic article today in the Post Gazette on the effects on the music world this had.

We all have heard the legend of Neil Young being so pissed off with this news he immediately wrote the OHIO song and went to the recording studio with then band maters Crosby, Stills and Nash that became one of the most powerful protest songs of that era.

But I didn't know Joe Walsh went to Kent State and was at the protest rally at the time. Walsh quit school then, went on that summer to record Funk#49 with the James Gang in Cleveland. I think he made the right career move.

Chris Butler was friends with Jeffrey Miller and they were at the rally. Jeffrey Miller was shot dead, immortalized in the famous photo of him laying face down with the girl screaming over his dead body. The photo was taken by my former neighbor John Filo who won a Pulitizer Prize. Anyways, Chris Butler momentarily left Miller to go dampen his bandana to guard against tear gas. Chris Butler became a founding member of the Waitresses, who if you were into 80's New Wave, their hit "I know What Boys Like" got regular play, also have a popular Christmas song that would likely be familiar with.

Gerard Casale lived with Terry Hynde in an off campus apartment. They attended the rally. Casale witnessed it live. Profoundly changed, Casale eventually became one of the founders and original "New Wave" bands.....DEVO.

Terry Hynde's sister also was at Kent State at the time. His sister, Chrissie, was also there during the massacre. She then also went on to join a band. That band was known as the Pretenders, and she reached Rock Goddess standards.

Joe Vitale was a long time drummer associated with Joe Walsh (James Gang). And during one concert tour in one of the many reunions with CSN&Y, he was their drummer for some event. They played the song Ohio. Vitale told them that, "I was born and lived in Kent during the massacre and could hear the shots and see the smoke". They never knew and were blown away by his admission.

Amazing that this one event, in what is an "Artsy" school in a very conservative part of Ohio, had so many musicians there on this day.

Great article.
 
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recruitsreadtheseboards said:
Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of this massacre. I read a fantastic article today in the Post Gazette on the effects on the music world this had.

We all have heard the legend of Neil Young being so pissed off with this news he immediately wrote the OHIO song and went to the recording studio with then band maters Crosby, Stills and Nash that became one of the most powerful protest songs of that era.

But I didn't know Joe Walsh went to Kent State and was at the protest rally at the time. Walsh quit school then, went on that summer to record Funk#49 with the James Gang in Cleveland. I think he made the right career move.

Chris Butler was friends with Jeffrey Miller and they were at the rally. Jeffrey Miller was shot dead, immortalized in the famous photo of him laying face down with the girl screaming over his dead body. The photo was taken by my former neighbor John Filo who won a Pulitizer Prize. Anyways, Chris Butler momentarily left Miller to go dampen his bandana to guard against tear gas. Chris Butler became a founding member of the Waitresses, who if you were into 80's New Wave, their hit "I know What Boys Like" got regular play, also have a popular Christmas song that would likely be familiar with.

Gerard Casale lived with Terry Hynde in an off campus apartment. They attended the rally. Casale witnessed it live. Profoundly changed, Casale eventually became one of the founders and original "New Wave" bands.....DEVO.

Terry Hynde's sister also was at Kent State at the time. His sister, Chrissie, was also there during the massacre. She then also went on to join a band. That band was known as the Pretenders, and she reached Rock Goddess standards.

Joe Vitale was a long time drummer associated with Joe Walsh (James Gang). And during one concert tour in one of the many reunions with CSN&Y, he was their drummer for some event. They played the song Ohio. Vitale told them that, "I was born and lived in Kent during the massacre and could hear the shots and see the smoke". They never knew and were blown away by his admission.

Amazing that this one event, in what is an "Artsy" school in a very conservative part of Ohio, had so many musicians there on this day.

Great article.
Click to expand...
Nice post Recruits. Kent State was a huge turning point in the movement to get the hell out of Viet Nam. A lot of mainstream Americans finally woke up to the question "what the hell are we trying to do, sending our finest young men half way around the world to die". For what? Seeing young kids shot down for protesting was a wake up call. There were still plenty of so called patriots out there who were willing to back the war to the last drop of his neighbor's son's blood. Hence the words "should have been done long ago".

As an aside, the girl in that picture was a 13 year old runaway. Her parents recognized her and that led to her going home again.
 
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recruitsreadtheseboards said:
Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of this massacre. I read a fantastic article today in the Post Gazette on the effects on the music world this had.

We all have heard the legend of Neil Young being so pissed off with this news he immediately wrote the OHIO song and went to the recording studio with then band maters Crosby, Stills and Nash that became one of the most powerful protest songs of that era.

But I didn't know Joe Walsh went to Kent State and was at the protest rally at the time. Walsh quit school then, went on that summer to record Funk#49 with the James Gang in Cleveland. I think he made the right career move.

Chris Butler was friends with Jeffrey Miller and they were at the rally. Jeffrey Miller was shot dead, immortalized in the famous photo of him laying face down with the girl screaming over his dead body. The photo was taken by my former neighbor John Filo who won a Pulitizer Prize. Anyways, Chris Butler momentarily left Miller to go dampen his bandana to guard against tear gas. Chris Butler became a founding member of the Waitresses, who if you were into 80's New Wave, their hit "I know What Boys Like" got regular play, also have a popular Christmas song that would likely be familiar with.

Gerard Casale lived with Terry Hynde in an off campus apartment. They attended the rally. Casale witnessed it live. Profoundly changed, Casale eventually became one of the founders and original "New Wave" bands.....DEVO.

Terry Hynde's sister also was at Kent State at the time. His sister, Chrissie, was also there during the massacre. She then also went on to join a band. That band was known as the Pretenders, and she reached Rock Goddess standards.

Joe Vitale was a long time drummer associated with Joe Walsh (James Gang). And during one concert tour in one of the many reunions with CSN&Y, he was their drummer for some event. They played the song Ohio. Vitale told them that, "I was born and lived in Kent during the massacre and could hear the shots and see the smoke". They never knew and were blown away by his admission.

Amazing that this one event, in what is an "Artsy" school in a very conservative part of Ohio, had so many musicians there on this day.

Great article.
Click to expand...

Great article indeed. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
 
I saw a Peter Paul and Mary show in NJ on the 25th anniversary of Kent State. Great music and the stories of that day were an amazing show about history.
 
recruitsreadtheseboards said:
Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of this massacre. I read a fantastic article today in the Post Gazette on the effects on the music world this had.

We all have heard the legend of Neil Young being so pissed off with this news he immediately wrote the OHIO song and went to the recording studio with then band maters Crosby, Stills and Nash that became one of the most powerful protest songs of that era.

But I didn't know Joe Walsh went to Kent State and was at the protest rally at the time. Walsh quit school then, went on that summer to record Funk#49 with the James Gang in Cleveland. I think he made the right career move.

Chris Butler was friends with Jeffrey Miller and they were at the rally. Jeffrey Miller was shot dead, immortalized in the famous photo of him laying face down with the girl screaming over his dead body. The photo was taken by my former neighbor John Filo who won a Pulitizer Prize. Anyways, Chris Butler momentarily left Miller to go dampen his bandana to guard against tear gas. Chris Butler became a founding member of the Waitresses, who if you were into 80's New Wave, their hit "I know What Boys Like" got regular play, also have a popular Christmas song that would likely be familiar with.

Gerard Casale lived with Terry Hynde in an off campus apartment. They attended the rally. Casale witnessed it live. Profoundly changed, Casale eventually became one of the founders and original "New Wave" bands.....DEVO.

Terry Hynde's sister also was at Kent State at the time. His sister, Chrissie, was also there during the massacre. She then also went on to join a band. That band was known as the Pretenders, and she reached Rock Goddess standards.

Joe Vitale was a long time drummer associated with Joe Walsh (James Gang). And during one concert tour in one of the many reunions with CSN&Y, he was their drummer for some event. They played the song Ohio. Vitale told them that, "I was born and lived in Kent during the massacre and could hear the shots and see the smoke". They never knew and were blown away by his admission.

Amazing that this one event, in what is an "Artsy" school in a very conservative part of Ohio, had so many musicians there on this day.

Great article.
Click to expand...
Very cool story!
 
Also, and while I was born, I was like 4, so obviously didn't remember or realize any of this.

You know, we think we live in such partisan times now. Reading some of this, many of the local blamed the kids, the protesters were labled "commies".

One of the best stories is John Filo who took the photo, and this is a perfect example of the climate back then. Started to fear for his safety and more importantly the safety of his pictures. He feared the authorities would arrest him, confiscate the photos, and erase any potential evidence. So Filo, instead of driving to a local police station, or even news agency, got in his car and drive the 2 1/2 drive back to New Kensington to the Valley News Dispatch where he interned in the summer. He indicated that he had no trust of anyone in Ohio, and feared his photos would be destroyed when revealed.

So again, we talk about today's state of politics and mind, it is amazing we have seemed to come 360 degrees back to this point in many ways.

But then after his photos were published, he would get death threats, calls at night at home calling him a "pinko" or "commie", etc...
 
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recruitsreadtheseboards said:
Also, and while I was born, I was like 4, so obviously didn't remember or realize any of this.

You know, we think we live in such partisan times now. Reading some of this, many of the local blamed the kids, the protesters were labled "commies".

One of the best stories is John Filo who took the photo, and this is a perfect example of the climate back then. Started to fear for his safety and more importantly the safety of his pictures. He feared the authorities would arrest him, confiscate the photos, and erase any potential evidence. So Filo, instead of driving to a local police station, or even news agency, got in his car and drive the 2 1/2 drive back to New Kensington to the Valley News Dispatch where he interned in the summer. He indicated that he had no trust of anyone in Ohio, and feared his photos would be destroyed when revealed.

So again, we talk about today's state of politics and mind, it is amazing we have seemed to come 360 degrees back to this point in many ways.

But then after his photos were published, he would get death threats, calls at night at home calling him a "pinko" or "commie", etc...
Click to expand...
The good old days
 
Several years ago I read that Neil Young penned that song only hours after the news broke and the declaration at the end is totally improvised during the recording.
 
I thought this was a really interesting story. Let's not make this into crazy, Locker Room type of yelling at each political post. Thanks.
 
recruitsreadtheseboards said:
I thought this was a really interesting story. Let's not make this into crazy, Locker Room type of yelling at each political post. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Too late.

I was of college age at the time and IMO the polarization today doesn't come close to what it was 50 years ago. A very, very turbulent decade.
 
recruitsreadtheseboards said:
Also, and while I was born, I was like 4, so obviously didn't remember or realize any of this.

You know, we think we live in such partisan times now. Reading some of this, many of the local blamed the kids, the protesters were labled "commies".

One of the best stories is John Filo who took the photo, and this is a perfect example of the climate back then. Started to fear for his safety and more importantly the safety of his pictures. He feared the authorities would arrest him, confiscate the photos, and erase any potential evidence. So Filo, instead of driving to a local police station, or even news agency, got in his car and drive the 2 1/2 drive back to New Kensington to the Valley News Dispatch where he interned in the summer. He indicated that he had no trust of anyone in Ohio, and feared his photos would be destroyed when revealed.

So again, we talk about today's state of politics and mind, it is amazing we have seemed to come 360 degrees back to this point in many ways.

But then after his photos were published, he would get death threats, calls at night at home calling him a "pinko" or "commie", etc...
Click to expand...

Seneca_Valley said:
Too late.

I was of college age at the time and IMO the polarization today doesn't come close to what it was 50 years ago. A very, very turbulent decade.
Click to expand...

It also doesn't come close to the 1850s. When you had people sneaking across the Kansas/Missouri border to murder "the other side" and you had folks literally beating each other senseless in the halls of Congress.
 
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I was out of the service 3 years when this happened. After what i saw in Nam and the 3 years back in the states, i wasn't surprised that there would be an incident between the protesters and those that supported war. Neither side was going to give an inch.
 
Fascinating. I'm too young to have followed this live, but I recently read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Incredible reflection on the war and one of the best American books of all-time. This gives it more context.
 
I had been in Okinawa in the Army for less than a month when Kent State happened. But, we didn’t know about it for almost a month. There was no television in Okinawa, and Armed Forces Radio made no mention of the massacre. Ever. The first we learned of it was when the news magazines hit the PX and we saw the pictures on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. It was absolutely shocking.

That was a day which I believe required every American to make a choice. I had been against the war before, and had a silver peace sign hidden among my belongings. I remember coming back to the BOQ that afternoon, getting it out, putting it on the chain with my dog tags, and wearing it for the rest of my two years on active duty. As long as you wore it under your uniform, they could not make you remove it.

When I got to Vietnam, at least half of the enlisted men wore peace signs that were visible and no one said anything about them. And, that was the 101st Airborne, the most elite unit in the Army. I still wore mine underneath my uniform because as an officer I didn’t think I should wear it on the outside. But, I wore it on the outside with my civvies.

There wasn’t a whole lot we could do to protest the war. We were fighting in the goddamn thing. But, that was the one way we could at least make a statement.
 
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Allison Krause was from Churchill. I was a junior in high school in West Mifflin, and remember it well. Crazy times, and much different from our most recent crazy times.
 
I was neither for the war or against it until i got my wake my call 3 1/2 years in. I was assigned to a pre-flight inspection with 3 others. This one was not a normal inspection, the flight crew was at base ops getting flight instructions, the C-130 engines were running and the doors were closed,air conditioning as low as it would go. As i soon found out the "'cargo" was American soldiers, in body bags on meat hooks and the destination was Hickam AFB, Hawaii where the soldiers were cleaned and placed in caskets,and then sent home. Yes, i had seen bodies before that being in USAF. 38th/79th ARRS, Air rescue and recovery, but this one hit me like ton of bricks.
 
Last edited:
The Ken Burns Vietnam series is fantastic. I watched the last 3 episodes last night.

It struck me just how evil we can be. And Richard Nixon was a brilliant president, only a horrible human being. But they lied and continued to escalate even though they knew it was a lost cause. The speech given about the "Vietnamization" of Vietnam and handing it over to the ArVen troops was a failure that they characterized in a televised speech as a complete success. And we now wonder why people don't trust the government?

Nixon rightly gets vilified on the Vietnam War but JFK and LBJ get way too much of a pass for getting us involved, and that deeply involved in the first place.
 
recruitsreadtheseboards said:
The Ken Burns Vietnam series is fantastic. I watched the last 3 episodes last night.

It struck me just how evil we can be. And Richard Nixon was a brilliant president, only a horrible human being. But they lied and continued to escalate even though they knew it was a lost cause. The speech given about the "Vietnamization" of Vietnam and handing it over to the ArVen troops was a failure that they characterized in a televised speech as a complete success. And we now wonder why people don't trust the government?

Nixon rightly gets vilified on the Vietnam War but JFK and LBJ get way too much of a pass for getting us involved, and that deeply involved in the first place.
Click to expand...
LBJ gets a pass. But not really. Viet Nam eventually forced his hand to withdraw from the '68 election JFK quickly realized it would be a quagmire and was set to get out. He signed a famous document that was going to start our withdrawal. Then Dallas happened. And that was no coincidence. LBJ signed an order rescinding that document 2 days after the assassination and it was on. Then we made up the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin to get Congress on board and the killing of 59,000 fine young men was initiated.

But in reality you have to go back to 1953. Viet Nam was a French Colony til occupied by Japan in WWII. After the war VN nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh fought a revolution to kick the french out and rule themselves. Very much like us in the 1770s. They finally defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu and that was the point where they should have been given self rule. But the US decided that Viet Nam couldn't unite under Ho because he allied himself with Communist China. And that was because the US wouldn't back his efforts for self rule and backed the French instead. Democracy my ass.
 
franklinman said:
I was neither for the war or against it until i got my wake my call 3 1/2 years in. I was assigned to a pre-flight inspection with 3 others. This one was not a normal inspection, the flight crew was at base ops getting flight instructions, the C-130 engines were running and the doors were closed,air conditioning as low as it would go. As i soon found out the "'cargo" was American soldiers, in body bags on meat hooks and the destination was Hickam AFB, Hawaii where the soldiers were cleaned and placed in caskets,and then sent home. Yes, i had seen bodies before that being in USAF. 38th/79th ARRS, Air rescue and recovery, but this one hit me like ton of bricks.
Click to expand...

The first time I flew into Vietnam, we landed at Tan Sanut Airbase outside Saigon. I was going on temporary duty but most of the soldiers on the plane were young kids there to start 12 month tours. The plane landed, and we started down the stair ramp, officers first, by rank. There to our right and no more than 25 yards away was a C-130 cargo jet. It loaded cargo through the back, and the cargo was coffins draped with American flags. KIAs. The coffins were stacked in rows, three high and probably six wide on the runway. The dead arrived in trucks in body bags and were placed into the coffins before being loaded onto the plane.

I almost threw up. A lot of guys did throw up. I thought to myself how ****ing dumb and insensitive can these people be to load that plane right there so it is the first thing arriving soldiers see. I mean, that base was huge. There were plenty of places it could have been done out of sight. Welcome to Vietnam! Morons.
 
wbrpanther said:
But in reality you have to go back to 1953. Viet Nam was a French Colony til occupied by Japan in WWII. After the war VN nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh fought a revolution to kick the french out and rule themselves. Very much like us in the 1770s. They finally defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu and that was the point where they should have been given self rule. But the US decided that Viet Nam couldn't unite under Ho because he allied himself with Communist China. And that was because the US wouldn't back his efforts for self rule and backed the French instead. Democracy my ass.
Click to expand...

Vietnam was independent or pseudo-independent for hundreds of years prior to the French “colonization.” It always was one country. It had successfully fought off Chinese attempts to conquer it for 800 years. All of a sudden, the French draw a line across the middle of the country and say now you are two countries. And, they turn the South over to a bunch of corrupt politicians who had been in their pockets. To top it off, most of them were Catholics and looked down their noses at the Buddhist “peasants.” They didn’t try to run the country. They only wanted to rob the country.

I was there 3 times on temporary duty, in 3 different areas of the country: Saigon; farther south near Cam Ranh Bay; and up north in the Au Shau Valley. I never met one Vietnamese who supported the South Vietnamese government. I also never met one communist. I met restaurant owners, tailors, farmers, fishermen and the people who worked on our bases. Most of them liked us. But, I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if necessary. The owner of the restaurant in Saigon where I hung out once told me “We like American GIs. You are good people. Number fu****g One. But, you have stupid leaders.” Nailed it!

Here we are 50 years later and Vietnam is thriving. Communist though the central government may be,
most businesses are privately owned. I haven’t been back but I have friends who have. They come home amazed at the lack of bitterness toward Americans. They still see us as their main protection to avoid being overrun by the Chinese since the geography they once heavily relied on doesn’t protect them in modern warfare.
 
mike412 said:
Vietnam was independent or pseudo-independent for hundreds of years prior to the French “colonization.” It always was one country. It had successfully fought off Chinese attempts to conquer it for 800 years. All of a sudden, the French draw a line across the middle of the country and say now you are two countries. And, they turn the South over to a bunch of corrupt politicians who had been in their pockets. To top it off, most of them were Catholics and looked down their noses at the Buddhist “peasants.” They didn’t try to run the country. They only wanted to rob the country.

I was there 3 times on temporary duty, in 3 different areas of the country: Saigon; farther south near Cam Ranh Bay; and up north in the Au Shau Valley. I never met one Vietnamese who supported the South Vietnamese government. I also never met one communist. I met restaurant owners, tailors, farmers, fishermen and the people who worked on our bases. Most of them liked us. But, I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if necessary. The owner of the restaurant in Saigon where I hung out once told me “We like American GIs. You are good people. Number fu****g One. But, you have stupid leaders.” Nailed it!

Here we are 50 years later and Vietnam is thriving. Communist though the central government may be,
most businesses are privately owned. I haven’t been back but I have friends who have. They come home amazed at the lack of bitterness toward Americans. They still see us as their main protection to avoid being overrun by the Chinese since the geography they once heavily relied on doesn’t protect them in modern warfare.
Click to expand...
God bless you Mike. I am so thankful that I missed that window.
 
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