Diatribune

I was 15 the day of the murders at Kent State. I had just rented my first apartment on the Ohio State University campus for 50 bucks a month, furnished, kinda. It came with a old couch on bricks, a old lumpy bed, a stove and frig.. It was a one bedroom basement dump and I had a roommate. The Moratorium March and Strike had been coming for days. Everywhere you looked people had spray painted big red fists. We carried stencils and cans of paint in our hippy bags. We would spray the fist on everything including peoples t-shirts and jackets.

I had runaway from home to join the In life. I had hair almost to my waist, a steady supply of LSD and Pot with which I made friends and sold to eat. I was bold yet naive in the way I trusted people. My heart and head hated the War in a way I had never felt about anything before. Being able to stand up and be counted as a person that want to stop the war was the most important thing in my life at the time. It was also a real adventure of sorts. My friends and I banded together to be a part of this movement. We were a angry bunch of peaceniks. We had already grown to hate the cops for the way they harassed us for just about everything.

The tensions had been building for days as the students boycotted classes, signs went up, and people held impromptu protests and rants on the street corners. The OSU campus had started it's protest a couple days before Kent. The Cops were out for blood, and so were we. We were prepared for the Teargas and batons. We had stashed bricks and rocks on different rooftops and in the alleys. Some of the people I knew even had rifles stashed away just in case. We knew our escape routes well. The crash pads had supplys of bandaids and water setup. We meant business even if others didn't.

State Street is the main drag in Columbus and everywhere you went the sounds of the Rolling Stones floated out the windows around that street and the side streets. Street Fighting Man floated thru the air like incense. Campus was buzzing with excitement, the raw edge of violence bubbling underneath. Rumors flew of people being stopped and beaten by the cops. No one wanted to be caught off by themselves, pack mentality was the mood.I felt so alive, so a part of something important. I had never been so aware of all my senses. The group I ran with was mostly reformed greasers who enjoyed getting high. A rough bunch of guys and gals ranging from 15 to 23. We were the kinda hippy that if you stopped to give us a hard time thinking we were just a bunch of punks, we would kick your ass without mercy. Most of us had grown up in the hard parts of town and were looking for the fantasy of free love, rock n roll, and drugs.

I had been thrown out of school for passing out AntiWar flyers and my long hair. I came from a broken home with a drunken mother who probably didn't even know I was gone. This was my real family now. Much like the gangs of today, yet we had a mission to stop the war. That mission bound us together in a way I have never found again. Smoking dope and drinking Boones Farm Apple Annie Wine in the days leading up to the riots was a bonding of souls and bodys. Sex, pot, music, and danger mixed with a bunch of rough and tumble teenagers was a high so potent we could only crave more and more.

The day came with rumors of the National Guard amassing with the Pigs. Those rumors combined with what we already knew about of Governor Rhodes, a real prick, spelled real threats of blood. It started off peaceful enough, just mostly kids chanting, singing and marching. "Hell No We Won't Go" mixed with Strike! Strike! Strike!, and every other slogan of the day rang thru the air. As the day passed and tensions grew they started to surround us. Black Riot Helmets, big batons, then the swoosh of teargas canisters flying by and exploding. The Cops attacked for no reason other than we refused to go home. They charged us and we charged back. We picked up canisters and threw them back. I saw one explode in a persons hand before they could get rid of it. Rocks came from out of nowhere and hit their targets. People began getting hurt and we retreated. Retreated ? Hell we panicked and ran for our lives. Damn we were alive ! Then we began to regroup, news was collected on the who what and where had happen. Cop cars were bombarded with bricks and rocks in sneak attacks to avenge what they had done to our brothers and sisters.

As night fell and a curfew was announced the news from Kent State started to make the rounds. The anger grew so fast it was unstoppable. We were hearing our worse fears come true. They had decided to shoot us, armed or not. It became a war and we wanted blood. Helicopters were flying overhead shining spotlights and giving away our positions. Cop cars would come flying up on us. We would have to throw whatever was handy and run for our lives. The ones that didn't get away were being beaten and either left to bleed or hauled away for more beatings. We managed to save a few, bandage a few, and snuck away to make new plans. The National Guard came to town.

After regrouping , the adrenalin pumping and feeding the rage, we would go off in groups of 2 and 3 to see what more we could do. I don't remember what time it was when I finally retreated to that dump of a apt of mine for the night. When I got there people had already gathered and were sitting around toking up and talking about the day. I didn't know many of them but that didn't matter today, we were one. As I started to wind down someone asked if a young girl could spend the night? Well she didn't really look that young maybe 16 to 18 but who could tell ? She had the look of panic. Her eyes as wide as the deer in the headlights and she looked like she had been crying. I sat down and started to talk to her, passed her a joint and listened to her story.

She had come from Kent State. She had seen the Murder, the death and she was shook. Her shaking got worse and the tears flowed like cheap wine as she told what she has seen. She was a runaway and felt like she had no where to turn and like she was being hunted. We curled up on the floor, some for the body heat, some just to comfort her, and to be honest, because there was little room anywhere else and I was still a high horny teenager. She obviously was not in the mood so she sobbed herself to sleep as I held her. When I woke the next morning she was gone. That young woman turned out to be on the front of Newsweek Magazine, kneeling over the body of Jefferey Miller. Her name is Mary Ann Vecchio, she was 14 the day the National Guard tried to kill her. I never saw her again, but I never forgot her or that day.

Four dead in Ohio. We said never again then. Today we are once again a nation waiting for our children to be gunned down before we stop this new madness. I pray it doesn't have to come to that. I fear it will. My memory haunts me today.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

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