Does anyone remember?...May 4, 1970

A line from an old Woodie Guthrie song brings to mind a simple question..."How many deaths does it take till we know, that to many people have died?"

How many does it take? How about countless thousands in Darfur, or how about 50,000 plus in VietNam, or maybe its 3,300 and counting in Iraq, oops I forgot the 600,000 Iraq soldiers and mostly civilians, then again maybe its the 33 students killed at Virginia Tech, at the hands of a poor delusional nut, is that enough or should we add more...?

Maybe four more...the four that should count pehaps the loudest. May 4, 1970, a date that should live in infamy, four students, some exercising the right of free speech and some not, died at Kent State University because our own soldiers, Americans themselves, following immoral orders, turned as they were retreating and opened fire on unarmed civilians. At a school! American soldiers , most not more than kids themselves, shooting at unarmed kids. All in the name of politics and "moral outrage". This has been swept away in the gift of forgetfullness, for the vast majority, but to this writer it was a life changing experience. I found myself questioning freedom itself and our inherrant right to express it in our own way. Maybe that is why I taught all my kids to "question authority", which they have done, way to well at times.

I was in the navy at the time, fairly gung ho and all proud till that fateful day, in an instant I changed, I came to the realization that no war is worth such a price and I could not support such an unjust cause. This is just not what ones pride and sense of justice is able to understand, and to this day I still dont. What the hell were we all dieing for, and I mean troops and civilians.

In a day or so I will turn 55 and though its been a long hard road, my deepest feelings have not changed. In these past 37 years many things have changed and unchanged as the case may be, I am still a "hippie" and a "peacenik", but now we find ourselves yet again facing the horrid reality of an immoral, illegal, and lost war. A war with more horrid implications than I care to think on. Not only are our rights being eroded or stolen at will, but the voice against it is weaker it seems and perhaps with good reason, perhaps not enough remember....or maybe to many are just afraid to stand anymore because to many have died. So tomorrow I will don my "remember Kent State" shirt and do just that....remember.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."...Theodore Roosevelt 1918.

P.S. My apologies to all for being errant in my ranting, due to a death in the family things have been a tad hectic, hopefully I will come up with something to laugh at quite soon.

Hope Beltane was a Blessing to all , TR.