Kent State and the Legion of Doom

By Aaron B. Pryor
Created Nov 3 2006 - 11:18am

There are incredible goings on at my alma mater. The journalism department
is vacating its old quarters for a new, freshly renovated building on Front
Campus. The new building is one I remember as old and crochety, with sticky
walls and hissing radiators. It's apparently been made over, and so the
J-School and student newspaper will move in a year.

A student organization has asked me to write to the administration on behalf
of the vacated space. See, the old office of the student newspaper looks out
onto one of the most famous historical sites of recent U.S. history: The
Prentice Hall parking lot. That's where Jeffrey Miller fell when he was shot
by the Ohio National Guard, where Mary Ann Vecchio found him and screamed to
the sky and became an iconic image through the lens of John Filo.

The May 4 Task Force is asking the new president to consider turning the old
office into a May 4 Visitors Center. It would be the perfect location for
such a thing. The heavily windowed office overlooks the lot and the memorial
itself. The administration is considering it, but it's also considering
stashing the Center in the same building but on the third floor.

My response to the Task Force's request suggests that the new administration
change course on its general reaction to the events of May 4. I suggested
that instead of trying to shake the event off its fingers like some stubborn
gooey taffy, as it has done for 36 years, it should embrace the event as an
interdisciplinary academic program that would occupy the entire first floor,
not just the one little office. The University does, after all, own the
legacy of May 4, like it or not. As an alumnus, I can tell you that when you
say you went there, the first thing people ask you about isn't the fine
Liquid Crystal Insitute or the miraculously surging basketball program. I
think the administration would do better for the school to embrace May 4 as
a unique academic opportunity rather than as a public relations problem it
has to deal with once a year.

But, what do I know.

I have to admit that I haven't been back to Kent for a May 4 vigil for many
years, but I intend to this spring. I've been inspired as such by Air Force
Secretary Michael Wynne.

Wynne hit the newspapers recently when he discussed the notion of testing
nonlethal weapons, such as high-power microwave devices, against American
citizens before they're used in battle.

For some odd reason, his comments made me think of the Kent State shootings.

You know, until there were bodies on the ground, most of the students
assumed the Guard's rifles held rubber bullets. They soon learned a
profoundly graphic lesson that a government willing to use rubber bullets on
its own people is also willing to use real ones.

So, what's a government that's willing to use microwave guns on its own
people willing to do above and beyond that?

Chilling, no?

So, I hope to march with a candle in the spring. I suppose I should be
grateful to Sec. Wynne for making this bit of history I studied in my 20s
seem relevant to me now in my late 30s. Somehow, though, gratitude is rather
far from my thoughts regarding Wynne's comments.

If ya'll think the idea of an accessible, staffed May 4 Visitors Center
might be a good idea, I think the M4TF wouldn't mind hearing from you.
(may4taskforce [at] yahoo [dot] com). May 4 is a good thing not to forget,
if not for the usual hackneyed reason given to remember such things-"so we
are not doomed to repeat it"-then at least for the reason that the secretary
of the Air Force is comfortable with the idea of zapping you and yours full
of microwaves.

Have a nice day.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson