From The Dissident Voice
By Cindy Sheehan

May 4th, 2007 will be the 37th year since the Kent State, Ohio, massacre where four anti-war protesters were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a protest against Richard Nixon’s announced escalation in Vietnam.

On that day in 1970, anti-Vietnam war sentiment in the entire nation was high as hundreds of soldiers were coming home in flag-draped coffins every week and we were bombarded daily with images of burning villages and screaming Vietnamese children. The images were harsh, but what was even harsher was the Nixon regime escalating a war in a Johnsonian way when he had promised that he would end the quagmire in Vietnam if elected.

The Kent State protest rose spontaneously against Nixon’s pronouncement. Anti-war sentiment was high on campuses all over America and soldiers during that time were in full-blown mutiny and actively protest the war in country and here in the states. By 1970 there were a reported 209 fragging (lower rank soldiers killing their superiors in the field) and well over 55,000 deserters. A young Alabama Air National Guardsmen named George H. Bush would soon add his name to the deserter’s when he failed to report for duty in 1972. It seemed like people from all demographics really cared enough to get out from behind their TV sets and out from behind the protection of their comfortable lives to join protests all over the country.

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