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Empty combat boots represent fallen Ohioans
Kiera Manion-Fischer
The Kent-Stater
Issue date: 5/7/07 Section: News
Originally published: 5/7/07 at 12:00 AM EST Last update: 5/7/07 at 12:12 AM EST
Among the daffodils on the hill in front of the May 4 Memorial, 161 pairs of boots were displayed Friday to represent the Ohioans who have died in the Iraq war.
Each pair of boots had a tag with the soldier's photograph, name, rank and hometown.
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-based non-profit organization, brought its "Eyes Wide Open Ohio" exhibit to Kent State. The exhibit was sponsored by the May 4 Task Force as part of its annual May 4 Commemoration.
Nearby, 100 pairs of shoes memorialized Iraqi casualties. Each pair represented 1,000 deaths.
However, volunteer Jason Duffy said the actual death toll is closer to 655,000.
"It's so hard to pinpoint how many people have actually died," he said.
Maureen Farris, Eyes Wide Open Ohio assistant, said she thought the display related to the May 4 shootings because those students' deaths were unnecessary, and the deaths in Iraq are also unnecessary.
Kathleen Myrman, coordinator of Eyes Wide Open Ohio, said she would like the display to be seen as a memorial rather than an anti-war statement.
She said the exhibit "shows in a real tangible way the cost of the war - both the American cost and the Iraqi cost."
Adam Ries, freshman interior design major, said he appreciated that the display remembered all the soldiers from Ohio, because one of them went to his high school in Ohio City.
"Even if you're not from this area," he said, "it makes you feel more connected."
Contact news correspondent Kiera Manion-Fischer at kmanion@kent.edu.
Speakers draw Iraq, Vietnam analogies
May 5, 2007
By Dave O'Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
The numerous speakers who rose Friday to remember the events of May 4, 1970 did not hold back in drawing parallels between the protests of that era and the ongoing war in Iraq.
Many were critical of the Bush administration for its policies and for going to war in Iraq, calling to mind former president Richard Nixon and his Vietnam-era policies.
"The past is a resource for where we're going," said author and peace activist Tom Hayden. "Efforts to obliterate the past have failed and we must use the past to succeed."
Hayden got a massive show of hands by asking who in the crowd favored impeaching Bush. Hayden said an "indirect, subtle impeachment" already is in the works.
"The whole White House crowd is completely toxic ... Impeachment is underway. Let it unfold and give it your voice," Hayden said during a speech marked by thunderous applause. "The legacy of Kent State is passing through subsequent generations: Antiwar movements are validated by the blood of young people. That is the tragic truth of our times," he said.
"It's important to put our bodies on the street and stop 'BushCo' and the war machine," said keynote speaker Cindy Sheehan, whose son, Casey, died in Iraq. "I promised Casey he wouldn't die in a war. He did because his mother didn't stand up ... It's time for us to put our warm bodies on the line."
Rosemary Palmer, mother of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II who worked in Streetsboro for a time and was killed in Iraq Aug. 3, 2005, had harsh words for the U.S. government and the ongoing war in Iraq.
"Congress is playing games" Palmer said, urging the crowd to support the many veterans who are coming home suffering from post-traumatic stress and debilitating injuries. "Stop enabling (the war). As soon as possible, we want to bring our guys home."
Speaking loudly and passionately under the hot midday sun, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan said the lessons learned in the 1960s and 1970s can be applied to the present day.
Ryan, whose district includes Portage County, asked the crowd to "pay respect to those who died in Iraq, Vietnam and here on this hallowed ground so we may never find ourselves in this position again."
"Our nation never healed" from the wounds of the Vietnam War, he said. He implored the hundreds of spectators, peace activists and protesters gathered on the commons to "organize, push for a firm timeline for the end of the war in Iraq ... Go to the street in a nonviolent way. Create a political climate that expects peace and deplores war."
Speaker Brad Cotton, a KSU alumni, brought his 14-year-old daughter Lauren with him to his first May 4 commemoration since 1977. A Quaker, Cotton also helped organize Friday's "Eyes Wide Open Ohio" display of 161 pairs of boots -- one for each Ohio servicemember lost in Iraq.
"Those of us of compassionate faith must be heard," he told the crowd.
Spectators like KSU senior Angela Schneider appreciated the message the speakers were sending.
"It was an awesome visual platform to draw parallels between the two wars," she said. "I think Cindy Sheehan has force behind what she says. And Tom Hayden was awesome."
May 4, 2007: Voices echo past war protests
Saturday, May 05, 2007
By Terry Oblander
Plain Dealer Reporter
Kent - Friday's commemoration of the 1970 shootings at Kent State University felt more like an anti-war rally.
While Bush had replaced Nixon and Iraq had replaced Vietnam, the words from both generations had the same ring.
Several speakers invoked the names of Kent State's dead and wounded as they urged students and the gray-haired veterans of 1970 to work for peace and the impeachment of the president.
Some of the voices were the same.
Alan Canfora, one of nine students wounded by the Ohio National Guard fire, echoed memories nearly 40 years old.
"Power to the people," he shouted to the cheers from hundreds gathered on the university commons.
Other voices were different, as students used chalk and stones to share their feelings, marking pavement such as the parking lot sites where four students died.
Outside the library, the names of servicemen killed in Iraq were written in chalk. "Remember Our Soldiers," the scrawling read.
Tom Hayden, a founder of the controversial Students for a Democratic Society, argued that the changing political landscape and large anti-war rallies were signs that the activism of the '60s had returned.
In a scene almost unimaginable 37 years earlier, a KSU president, Lester Lefton, welcomed Hayden Thursday night as the keynote speaker for a symposium on democracy and peace.
Others marking the anniversary this year included Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son Casey died in Iraq.
Sheehan, who has attracted national attention by picketing outside Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, called for the president's impeachment
Another familiar face at the commemoration was Mary Ann Vecchio, who was captured on May 4, 1970, kneeling beside the body of Jeffrey Miller in the Pulitzer-winning photograph by student John Filo.
Vecchio was 14 when she ran away from her home in Opalocha, Fla., and hitchhiked north. She said she heard she could drink 3.2 beer in Ohio.
In an interview Thursday, Vecchio, now 51, said she had no way of knowing she would become a symbol of the May 4 tragedy at KSU. The horrors she witnessed that day, such as Allison Krause desperately trying to speak her final words, have haunted her for life.
"That was like war to me," she said.
On Friday, it was today's war being evoked. On Blanket Hill below Taylor Hall, the Quakers' American Friends Service Committee lined up 161 pairs of boots, each with the name and photo of an Ohioan who has died in Iraq.
KSU freshman Amy Wohlwend, 18, of Stow looked for the name of Marine Cpl. Joseph A. Tomci, a Stow-Munroe Falls High School graduate who died last year in Iraq.
She finally found and photographed the boots dedicated to Tomci.
She said she wasn't bothered by the anti-war tone of the May 4 commemoration.
"I think it's really important," she said. "It brings it home."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
toblander@plaind.com, 800-683-7348
Akron Beacon Journal, May 5, 2007
Anniversary of May 4, 1970, shootings a time for many to think of war in Iraq
Peaceful march ends memorial
By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
KENT: - The annual commemoration of the 1970 Kent State University shootings Friday was as much about the Iraq war as it was about what happened nearly four decades ago on this Portage County campus.
The 37th anniversary of the shootings included remarks by one of the most outspoken opponents of the Iraq war -- the mother of a soldier killed there -- and concluded with a peaceful anti-war march downtown by about 200 people chanting anti-war slogans and carrying signs.
While several hundred gathered for the official commemoration, a group of students -- many of them Army ROTC cadets -- met at a nearby dormitory for the second annual We Love America Barbecue.
The day's activities were in memory of the four students killed and nine wounded when Ohio Army National Guardsmen fired on a group of Vietnam War protesters.
The victory bell, which is rung each year to commemorate the Kent State deaths, was rung an additional 32 times Friday in memory of those who died at Virginia Tech in April.
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, mother of Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, who was killed in in Iraq in 2004, called for a ``new revolution of activism'' during her appearance at the May 4 commemoration.
``I wish college students cared enough about what's going on in Iraq and our country to be as committed as the students were in 1970,'' Sheehan said in an interview before her remarks.
Sheehan, 49, who was 12 years old when the Kent State shootings occurred, said she was not active against the war until her son was killed.
During her speech, she said, ``We need to remember May 4th all over the world, not just here in Ohio.''
She called for the impeachment and imprisonment of officials in the administration of President George W. Bush, and said the push against the war in Iraq ``has to be a peace movement.''
She visited the site where the four students were killed 37 years ago and was overcome with emotion as she told the crowd she would like to someday see the spot in Sadr City in Baghdad where her son was killed by an insurgent's bullet.
On display at the university's commons were boots representing 161 Ohioans who have died in Iraq.
Wes and Julie Emch of Brimfield Township, parents of Navy Hospitalman Lucas ``Luke'' Emch, who was killed in March, embraced over the boots representing their son.
Rosemary Palmer of Cleveland, mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Edward August ``Augie'' Schroeder II, killed in 2005, also spoke.
She told the crowd that she and her husband, Paul Schroeder, knew when they learned of their son's death that they should take on the mission to express what their son had said: The war ``is not worth the cost.''
Freshman nursing student Kara Kear, 19, of Toledo, studied on the commons in the morning sunshine before the rally.
``It's important to be involved with May 4th activities and to remember all the people whose lives were lost,'' she said. There aren't enough people of her generation ``who would do what they did.''
At the same time as the memorial service, more than 30 students gathered at nearby Engleman Hall for their own event. Many were Army ROTC students. They displayed American flags and grilled food in a party atmosphere.
``We feel the commemoration has become over-political and it's become an activist event,'' said Joel Newborn, a 21-year-old junior ROTC cadet from Lisbon, Ohio.
The group held a moment of silence for the victims of the Kent State shootings at the beginning of their party.
Elias Chelala, 23, of Lakewood, who will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army this month, said the dormitory party was designed to show support for troops and the victims of May 4 ``and to have a good time... We are here 'cause we love our country, our school and the Army.''
A pair of boots adorned with a photo of Sgt. Lane Tollett of Columbus, Ohio, sits at the base of the May 4, 1970, memorial on the campus of Kent State University Friday, May 4, 2007, as part of an anti-war display. Tollett was killed in Iraq Saturday, April 28, 2007, and anti-war protestors displayed 161 boots in honor of all Ohio soldiers killed in Iraq as part of the annual May 4 remembrance. (AP Photo/Jeff Glidden)
Kent State Ceremony Honors Va. Victims
May 4, 2007 - 8:00pm
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press Writer
KENT, Ohio (AP) - The campus bell tolled Friday for two tragedies separated by a generation as Kent State memorialized its four dead at the hands of Ohio National Guardsmen and the 32 killed at Virginia Tech by a gunman.
The Kent State Victory Bell rang 32 times at midmorning for last month's victims of the Virginia Tech shooter, who took his own life, then rang again at midday for the annual commemoration of the May 4, 1970, shootings at the Ohio college.
The afternoon ceremony on the 37th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, which happened during a Vietnam-era war protest, had the feel of an anti-war rally as speakers denounced the U.S. war in Iraq and called for student activism to halt it.
"This has got to be a peace movement," said anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who choked up as she recounted the death of her son in Iraq. "What an honor it is to be welcomed into the Kent State family."
Fellow anti-war activist Tom Hayden urged students to lobby against the war.
The Virginia Tech commemoration was scheduled to coincide with the time of the second of two fatal attacks there April 16.
"I choked up. It's an emotional thing," said Sarah Lund-Goldstein, a Kent State senior and part of the campus group that organized the commemoration. "We feel it's very important to understand that a grieving campus is not just one from 37 years ago."
A crowd estimated by police at 200 to 300 sat on a sun-drenched, grassy hillside and heard speakers memorialize the Kent State students.
Mary Ann Vecchio, 51, of Miami, the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showing her with arms outstretched over the body of shooting victim Jeffrey Miller, told the gathering her experience on the campus that the day in 1970 will always be with her.
"Time has passed. Time goes on. We miss you here today," she said, invoking Miller's memory. "I'll always be here at Kent for you."
A survivor, Alan Canfora, said this week that an analysis of static-filled audio from the 1970 campus shootings revealed a military order to open fire. It has long been a mystery what prompted the 13 seconds of gunfire.
After the shootings, the FBI concluded it could only speculate on whether an order was given to fire. One theory was that a Guardsman panicked or fired intentionally at a student and that others fired when they heard the shot. Eight Guardsmen were acquitted of federal civil rights charges.
Canfora, 58, one of nine students wounded in the shooting, located the tape in Yale University's archives about the event. He has called for new federal and state investigations.
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.)
