What if You Knew Her?

I've watched the entire Vietnam War series on PBS so far. I've found it to be an excellent documentary, with voices from all perspectives and sides telling their stories. I've learned a lot about what was actually going on. Some of it has made me angry. All of it has been eye-opening.

Tonight it was different, though. Tonight the program covered the shootings of the four students at Kent State in May 1970. Tonight my emotions overwhelmed me as the program ended with the playing of the song, "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

I think for me, this was the turning point where I felt the war hit home. I was 14 in 1970; the students who were killed were not much older than I was. Killed in f***ing cold blood by a bunch of scared boys about the same age in Army uniforms whose leadership were bungling fools.

I don't know about others my age, but Kent State opened my eyes and brought a kind of reality to the war that I hadn't felt before. After that I watched it much more closely.

We were lucky; March 1973 was when the last combat troops left Vietnam. We didn't turn 18 until later in 1973 and 1974. We were also lucky that we lived here and not there. I can't imagine what it was like to live through what the people in Vietnam lived through.

We were part of it, though. We went through our critical adolescent period as the world we were prepared and groomed for started falling to pieces. The mirror cracked for me with Kent State in 1970. And tonight in 2017 the flood gates opened when the images and the music met again,

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
How could you run when you know?