New light shed on Kent State killings -- Shots fired at Guard, declassified files indicate

It is about time the real truth came out -- what took so long for these files to be declassified?

From Day One, the people that were there as part of the Guard and others said that the first two shots were fired not by the Guard but at the Guard. The media was in such a frenzy to blame the Guard that is how the story has been carried for years that they shot these innocent protesters without provocation. The only side the media was interested in was the side of the demonstrators. It was no secret that there were paid professional organizers behind some of these demonstrations and Kent State was no different. The only difference was that it turned deadly when shots were fired we would suspect from the paid organizers.

Having dealt with the Vietnam protesters every Saturday from Antioch College in Yellow Springs at the Main Gate of Wright-Patterson AFB in Fairborn, nothing would shock me about the real facts on the demonstrators. Most of the demonstrators were in their late 20's and early 30's and remember thinking to myself that I am a younger and yet I was working and how can they pay the rent. It was so bad that if you had a base decal on your car, you were not supposed to drive through Yellow Springs to get to Springfield from Fairborn -- they advised taking the Interstate which was longer. The last time I was back in Fairborn about five years ago, there was still a demonstrator outside the main gate with his long white hair and beard. Laughed as I drove in the gate.

Remember when Richard Nixon came to dedicate the new Air Force Museum -- was fortunate to have reserved seats because of where I worked and took my younger brother with me. We had reserved parking so we were able to drive by the demonstrators and their yelling rude obscenities at the cars going by. Remember watching these demonstrators put daises in the rifles of the young men (knew several of them) standing at attention along the entrance to the Museum.

Security was extremely tight that September day in 1971 more than a year after the Kent State shootings. The demonstrators taunted the military and did everything they could to get a rise out of them. But to the credit of those young men of the honor guard, they never blinked. They finally arrested the demonstrators and loaded them on buses and dumped them in another part of Ohio to find their way back.

At one point the demonstrators decided to shut down Wright-Patterson AFB for the day -- didn't work as we had a very low absentee rate that day on the base even though we had to drive through the protesters to get in the gates -- remember to this day the obscenities and having things thrown at cars.

Must admit there was one funny incident when some idiot doctor from the USAF Medical Center W-P took part in the demonstrations. He was about to finish his commitment within the month as the Air Force had paid for his medical school. The idiot was part of the demonstrators except he decided to start jumping on car hoods going into the Hospital Gate. He was set to finish his commitment in exchange for his medical training within the month.

Can still remember my boss, the Command Surgeon for Logistics Command getting the call from the Commander of the Medical Center about this fool of a doctor. My boss hit the ceiling and told the Commander to 'throw the book' at the doctor as he not only jumped on car hoods but demonstrated in his hospital uniform. I can still remember him saying to get back every last penny the Air Force had spent on his medical degree. The doctor was arrested, court martialed, and made to pay back every penny even though he fought it in civilian court.

Professional organizers kept stirring things up around Ohio even after Kent State trying to incite more violence. Military were told not to wear their uniforms off the base to do anything but go home. They were not to go into downtown Dayton in uniform. If you had a decal on your car, you were not to go alone downtown.

These demonstrators and the media that played them up as heroes left very bad feelings of disgust that has never gone away. The fact that professional organizers got them stirred up is one thing but the fact they could be led around has made me wonder to this day what they were thinking. It is something I will NEVER forget or forgive some of the national media for making them heroes.

In 2008, I saw that same mentality -- no questioning about Obama -- treat him like a god and honor him as he spoke. Anyone speaking against his policies were to be taunted and chastised. It is a mentality to this day I don't understand why people cannot think for themselves but be told what to do and what to think by professional organizers.

Now that the facts are out in the open are the media members who played up the demonstrators and attacked the Ohio National Guard going to say they made a mistake? I will not hold my breath, but at least members of the Guard from that time period have been vindicated that they didn't just start shooting at random.

Once again, why were these records sealed for so long?

New light shed on Kent State killings
Shots fired at Guard, declassified files indicate

James Rosen SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Previously undisclosed FBI documents suggest that the Kent State antiwar protests were more meticulously planned than originally thought and that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen before their killings of four students and woundings of at least nine others on that searing day in May 1970.

As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State antiwar protests Tuesday, a review of hundreds of previously unpublished investigative reports sheds a new — and very different — light on the tragic episode.

The upheaval that enveloped the northeastern Ohio campus actually began three days earlier, in downtown Kent. Stirred to action by President Nixon's expansion of U.S. military operations in Cambodia, a roving mob of earnest antiwar activists, hard-core radicals, curious students and others smashed 50 bank and store windows, looted a jewelry store and hurled bricks and bottles at police.

Four officers suffered injuries, and the mayor declared a civil emergency. Only tear gas dispersed the mob.

An exhaustive review later concluded that this unrest on the streets — the worst in Kent's history — was "not an organized riot or a planned protest."

But the FBI's investigation swiftly uncovered reliable evidence that suggested otherwise. Among the strongest was a pre-dawn conversation — never before reported — between two unnamed men overheard inside a campus lounge later that night. Their discussion was witnessed by the girlfriend of a Kent State student and conveyed up the FBI chain of command 15 days later.

"We did it," one man exulted, according to the inquiry. "We got the riot started."

The second man expressed disappointment at being excluded from the riot's planning. "Wait until tomorrow night," the leader replied excitedly. "We just got the word. We're going to burn the ROTC building."

This was 20 hours before the ROTC headquarters on the Kent State campus, an old wooden frame building, was, in fact, burned to the ground.

"What about the flare?" the second man asked before the leader spotted the coed listening to them and abruptly ended the conversation. Dozens of witnesses later told the FBI they saw a flare used to ignite the blaze.

Excerpt: Read more at Washington Times