04/05/2024
I used to say, watch out, it can happen here. The saddest thing is, I it is happening here.
Never forget. Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, William Knox Schroeder.
54 years ago today, the murder of 4 Kent State students shattered our world. Our innocence was lost, and, for me, I grew up in the space of a 13-second volley that ended the lives of these four young students less than an hour south of where I call home.
May 4, 1970 was the day the Vietnam War came home. No longer did we have to wear a uniform in order to become a casualty of war. No longer was the war confined to some foreign land with a foreign name, a place hard to find on the map and even harder to imagine what it was like. Even though daily newspaper and TV accounts declared the bottom line every day: body counts. The body count at Kent State was 13: 4 dead, 9 wounded. Just a line on a ledger sheet, the ledger of lost humanity.
“It can’t happen here” stopped being true. It did happen here.
Nothing has changed. No, wait. Something important has changed. In 1970 the deaths of citizens on the streets of America was a shock. Today, it is met with indifference. Kids walk around dealing death to their video enemies. The rest of us read about the latest school killings, then go on about our way.
Death was once shocking to us. Now it is another minor news item, if that, to be met with indifference.
It no longer "can" happen," it is happening here. Never forget.
