Okay, so what happened at Kent State?
Sharper cultural divide, higher emotions, back then.
>> Okay, so what happened at Kent State?
Good question. My opinion: there will *always* be the possibility of isolated events, but I don’t think our current voluntary military has the stomach for widespread military violence against its own.
Over the course of years, that could change I suppose.
Also I have heard it said that if you need to do military “police action” in the Philadelphia ‘hood you handpick southern rednecks for the job, and if you need troops to put down a rural insurrection you choose your inner city ghetto youth, and so forth... leverage local tastes so to speak.
Well, according to at least one version, a provocateur shot at the Nat’l Guard first, thereby sparking the entire incident.
I would allow anybody under arms to defend themselves if they felt threatened while in the performance of their duties.
There is credible evidence of a gunshot before the fatal volley at Kent State. Personally, if someone was throwing bricks, rocks and molatov cocktails at me and I heard a gunshot, I would probably react in a most agressive manner.
That was my first thought...
Mark
Not the same thing.
If my memory serves, the Guardsmen thought they were being fired on.
I am a Army vet.
Untrained troops forced to deal with radical, violent and naive, marxist directed students.............chaos
As in every Marxist movement, deaths of the participants aren't mourned but celebrated since they died for the cause.
Reserve units in that era were a comedy. If it were regular Army, it wouldn't have happened.
In the 1960's, regular Army units were practicing riot control. We drilled with several types of formations with fixed bayonets. We were told there were seven levels of escalating use of force. Shooting bullets was the last. If we were sent into the streets, I doubt they would have issue more than four rounds apiece.
This was the era of racial strife and commie war protests. No one ever polled if we would have fired upon Americans. I'm guessing it would have went down the same way as the Army led by Douglas MacArthur broke up the Veterans "Bonus Army" protest in Washington DC. The regular Army is going to obey orders. Count on it.
Bush the First ordered Army and Marines into Los Angeles during the 1992 Rodney King riots. Once the troops arrived the riots stopped. Count on it.
Keep in mind these two uses of US military were not against citizens standing up for basic freedoms. In both cases, the military was used against mobs. Citizens organized to defend basic constitutional freedoms presents a different moral dilemma for our soldiers. What they will choose is a guessing game. What the military leaders would choose too is a guessing game.
Oh,the Kent State where National Guard troops were fired at first.
There were/are reports that college activists and radical fired at the guard and the guardsmen fired back in response.
If you ask me, kent State only proved that the NG needed to spend more time at the range.
See my home page.
The killings at Kent state actually put an end to years of violence...When the useful idiot students were shown that there are repercussions to their lawless takeover of many universities. Since they could get killed, it wasn't so much fun to be a revolutionary
A bunch of SDS scum were throwing rocks at armed men. That never ends well.
A bunch of SDS scum were throwing rocks at armed men. That never ends well.
The commies shot first? There is pretty good evidence of a provocateur.
I’m dead certain that troops WILL shoot back. They might not start anything, but they WILL finish it, no matter who they’re shooting at.