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Campus "Unrest" demonstrations and consequences, 1970-1971

1971-11-12 American Report: Review of Religion and American Power Page 18

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14-S AMERICAN REPORT NOVEMBER 12,1971 'I'm Not Going to be Blind in My Patriotism' (Cont from p. 14-S) [italics] Many adults of your age have been in support of the war almost unquestioningly and have not understood the youth protest in regard to our involvement in Viet Nam. Would you care to characterize your position prior to your son's or your daughter's death? Do you understand better today the position that a large portion of youth seem to hold? [/italics] Mrs. Schroeder: There was a turning point in my life on this subject just this past Monday night. Now I admit that I was guilty of saying perhaps five years ago, "Yes, we belong in Viet Nam. Yes, we should bomb the communists off the earth." I'll admit to saying that; I'll admit that after Bill started talking the way he did...he was in the R.O.T.C., but he still developed an antagonism about the war. He attended meetings at Case Western Reserve with the approval of his R.O.T.C. captain. Last Monday night, at a Boy Scout Court of Honor, I heard a speech that was the biggest flag waving thing...it was a man who was carrying the word the length and breadth of this country. He stood on that podium-it was in a small Congregational church with a public address system turned up to accommodate the heard of hearing; he spoke with a voice that has won a Master of Science degree in speech sometime, someplace, and bragged that he had given his speech in 300 schools and organizations, that he had been canceled out of almost as many because his speech was controversial. But when he said that we have to stay in Viet Nam to back up what all the boys have fought and died for and because of the prisoners who are there, that we have to stay, that we have to back to a man the President and the Pentagon to keep the war going there... The Boy Scouts were sitting in the front, the adults were in the back. The adults applauded him almost to a standing ovation, except they were in church and probably didn't think it was appropriate. The boys sat in front; they were 11 to 17 years old. They gave a little "I'm glad it's over" type clap. I could not clap my hands once for the man. People who were sitting nearby knew me but were not with me. One lady, two rows in back, came up later and said, "I noticed you didn't clap." And I said, "No, I couldn't. It's people like that who shot my son and won't do anything about it," And she said, "I understand." [italics] So that was the turning point for you? [/italics] Mrs. Schroeder: That was the turning point for me. We have friends and neighbors who have lost boys over there and I have felt for them all along. I am tempted to send a sympathy card every time I read of even a stranger being killed there, but I think, "will they think that what happened to my son was as important as what happened to their son." This came out when we all got a letter from President Nixon, and a letter to the editor said: "Well, my son died in Viet Nam and I didn't get a letter. Why is dying at Kent more important to President Nixon than dying in Viet Nam?" But I think that was the real turning point for me on this blind flag-waving. I'll put my flag out on July 4 and Washington's birthday with the rest of them, but I'm not going to be blind in my patriotism any more. Mr. Krause: The turning point for me was the Cambodian affair. That Saturday evening I was with some friends and we were all chatting together and we were all about the same age level, but we were just sitting around the fireplace objecting-inside ourselves. I mean with ourselves. [italics] So it was really happening before Allison's death then? [/italics] Mr. Krause: That's right. It had already happened. But I was wishing that President Nixon was going to do the things he said he was going to do, and I think all of us were praying that he was going to get us out of that morass. And then to throw it into Cambodia that moment-just seemed to me...well, I can't answer. It just makes me sick. [italics] Mr. Scheuer, do you wish to react about the war? [/italics] Mr. Scheuer: Oh, I'm not against the Army; not today. I think we need a defensive Army. But we should not police the world. We're not a super race. We should not send our boys out to suppress every leftist uprising. Let people live the way they want to live, and figure out their own destiny, and fight for their own existence. Mr. Krause: In that particular context, Lieut. Col. (Anthony) Herbert, this blessed man, is pushing forth (A R, Oct. 1-8). He believes in the Army, but he doesn't believe in what it's doing. [italilcs] Governor Rhodes of Ohio said at a Kent news conference the day before the shooting that campus protestors were "worse than brownshirts, and the communist element and also the nightriders and the vigilantes. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America." Putting Governor Rhodes' inflammatory rhetoric aside, would you characterize your son or your daughter a radical?[/italics] Mrs. Schroeder: Well, Bill would have answered it by saying that he couldn't afford to be a radical because, first of all, he was in R.O.T.C. He also had a wide circle, wide variety of friends none of whom really knew the other side. He would say, "I'm not a square, and I'm not a freak. I can handle both sides." He could argue both sides of a question. He would find out whatever side you were on and pick the other side just to stimulate the conversation. But as for being radical...he resented his friends going to Viet Nam. He hoped for himself that by the time he was commissioned that the war would be over, but after Cambodia he more or less knew it wouldn't be over by the time he was ready-not that he would have wanted to shirk what was his duty or take an education free and not give back to the Army what they gave to him but... I think I'm going to say something I've never said before. He wanted to throw a stone that day, I hope he threw it. Mr. Krause: Amen. Mrs. Schroeder: I hope that if it came to that point that day with what went on, that if he felt in his heart that would accomplish something, I hope he did it. [italics] That brings up a question about tactics: nonviolent versus violent. Some people seem to telescope that whole weekend and assume that the people that were involved Saturday in burning that old building were the people that were shot on Monday. [/italics] Mr. Krause: Let me summarize the events. On Friday night, there was the reaction to President Nixon's statement about the incursion in to Cambodia. It was also springtime, and in any event, the good people of Kent, the Kent police, had a problem on their hands. The students gathered in town and did do some very inept things and it got into a bad situation, and there were some windows broken. Well, my daughter, in talking to me on Saturday, told me that she was not involved in that particular situation. She said it was kind of silly destroying property and she didn't think it was a relevant kind of protest. But she was very upset about the situation and I cautioned her, in my dogmatic way, and told her to stay away from the National Guard. That evening she was watching the R.O.T.C. thing. Her dormitory was right next door to it, practically. On Sunday she, like all the people who were involved on campus, was frightened by this incursion onto the campus. It has been said that Sunday night a girl was bayoneted. I have heard that two people were bayoneted-at least. Some of the guardsmen had no discipline, They went wild and they were able to pick on the kids, the children, the students, because I think there were some in the National Guard who felt, as you said earlier, Martin, jealousy toward this group. Mrs. Schroeder: We're assuming that the same young guards who evaded the draft and wished they were in college but couldn't be are the ones who did the shooting. The ones who did the shooting were more mature men. They were ex-Army men with experience. I mean the ones who had 15 to 18 hours of riot training. They had had from seven to eight to 13 years in the National Guard. They were not the ones who were pulled out of school and given a gun to shoot. Now that's what was played up in the newspapers originally: that they were wide-eyed, innocent young men with no training who didn't want to be fighting...it was almost a civil war, it seemed-brother fighting against brother. So if that could be made a little bit clearer. And then there was the interview with General Del Corso when he said, "Well, maybe we did get them a little too much ready for a combat situation." I think that if more people knew that the ones who did the shooting were not the raw, innocent breed but rather the older, combat-conditioned men... Mr. Sindell: Just a brief comment. It seems to me what this illustrates in a way is that the amount of training a man receives has very little to do necessarily with the kind of value judgments that he is going to make at a particular time. Mr. Krause: In that particular situation, Governor Rhodes even had his speech piped into the bivouac (Cont. p. 15-S, Col. 1) {In box, lower left hand corner of page: FLOWERS FOR THE DEPARTED Allison Krause, for you this flower Desert-born in a distant land Suddenly, in rain miraculous Flamed into life and lit with orange fire The arid plain. So may your seed, Returned untimely to the earth Bring back the beauty to your desert land. Sandy Lee Scheuer, for you this flower Shining and vivid like your life Which fleeing as it were a shadow Continued in so short a stay May your shiningness return To your dark land. Jeffrey Miller, for you this flower A golden eye amidst a field of tares Yet by the blind machine cut down We mourn for you, and yet shall mourn With ever-returning Spring. William Schroeder, for you this last From this far country. Out of this grief come joy Out of this darkness, light Out of your dying, life. America, for you these flowers Would we could reach out hands to comfort you But we dare not We dare not touch those fingers dripping With children's blood. -Alan Paton Drawing of five bullets, center one with flower. Alan Paton, the South African novelist, read this poem at the University of Rhodes last year in memory of the Kent State victims.
 
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