Don Wildman

Back then, it wasn't really like that.

And I wonder, although of course we see riots being controlled by everybody, but that's what I always wondered about this situation, whether it was a matter of training and understanding the circumstances as much as it was the intentional desire to control these things in a different way.

Yeah, exactly.

May 3rd, third day of these events unfolding, 1,200 National Guard are on the Kent State campus.

This is when the governor of Ohio, Jim Rhodes, he promises at a press conference that he's going to use law enforcement against the students, declares that the protests are caused by a group of agitators going to campus to campus.

This is language we hear even today.

But nonetheless, the room, the university remains open with classes going ahead.

Those demonstrators then block traffic and become dispersed with tear gas and importantly, bayonets.

Right.

This is always a startling thing to me that you would fix bayonets when dealing with what is essentially a bunch of unarmed, you know, rather peaceful in most cases, protesters.

Why the bayonets?

Let us go there.

May 4th, the demonstrations have been banned.

That's announced by a distribution of leaflets.

That seemed interesting to me.

What did the leaflets say?

Brian, you say that the amount of guardsmen on the campus is about 100.

I previously mentioned 1,200.

It's a whole bunch of deployment going on here in the area, right?

It's important to realize that at this point, you're talking about a massive group of people, you know, thousands of students against what is essentially a hundred National Guardsmen, right?