12-020 Garand Picture of the Day - Kent State

[Mark in Rochester]

Information

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[Paul S.]

You have to think that the girl with the white mask over her face and the white gloves is there for trouble of a Marxist-Lenist kind.

Campus 'Community Organiser' per chance?

[Amsdorf]

Not the Garand's finest hour.

[maxim]

A regretful turn of events in a different place and time. Troops performing a role they were not trained to do and lack of clear goals, guidelines and limits. I would like to know more about the fixtures used to attach a riot visor shield to a M-1 helmet.

[browningautorifle]

I don't know about the lack of training...I've been trained in Aid to the Civil Power. (Riot control). I was Canadian army. I would have thought US troops would have some working knowledge of this too. Our visors were attached with a spring around the back and a metal shroud that went over the front helmet rim. These just seem to be fastened at the sides.

[Larry G.]

We were trained and drilled constantly in riot control and the legality on the use of deadly force.In two full scale riots and one Democratic Convention not one round was fired by my unit. We did expend a large amount of tear gas towards the crowd after they became unruly and would not obey orders to move back to the starting point of the march a mile away.

[browningautorifle]

We were trained and drilled constantly in riot control

I thought so Larry...

[Bob Womack]

And now on an historical note, few people realize that Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh was present during the event at Kent State that day. Joe had attended Kent State a couple of years back where he majored in electronics and "hanging out." He was hired away from Kent State to join the popular rock group The James Gang and toured extensively with them. On the day of the Kent State riots. May 4, 1970, he was back visiting friends at the school. He wandered over near the site where the shooting was about to happen and then walked a short distance away with his friends to get away from the ugliness and noise. When he heard the shots he ran back and witnessed the aftermath.

Bob

[Col. Colt]

Just a word about the violence at Kent State. I ran across a book, years ago, that studied the shooting - and came to the conclusion that the Guardsmen who said they were fired upon where right - and the shooting was provoked by an unknown agent provacateur (sp?).

Apparently there was a piece of symbolic "modern artwork" on a pedestal made of heavy sheetmetal panels between the dormatory and the guardsmen that ended up with holes in it. As you know, shooting through sheetmetal, you can tell which direction the rounds came from due to the stretching and tearing of the metal. This metal had been struck from the dormatory side - indicating that someone did take shots at the National Guard to get them to return fire.

It may have even been the deliberate "target" of the person trying to provoke the Guard - who perhaps wanted them to hear gunfire but did not actually want to hit anyone so the incident would be "an unprovoked attack" on "innocent college kids" by the US Military. It the Guardsmen were just defending themselves, no one would blame them.

The "monument" immediately was taken down - perhaps as "evidence" and went away afterward and then could not be located, or so went the story. I cannot vouch for the book or it's accuracy, as I read it many years ago and do not even know the title - but it would have been like the Commie Agitators of the time. The Weather Underground, Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorin crowd would have happily set this up. That little "wench" (I am being polite) with the white mask and gloves was not there to promote understanding and brotherly Love. None of the "Peace" Aggitators were promoting "Peace" - they were promoting a Communist Victory in Vietnam and the World - although the more clueless just wanted to smoke dope and seduce coeds with their "Hip" act. CC

[Bob Womack]

This forum does not allow political discussion in order to maintain a civil discourse. In that light, this thread is closed.

Bob