Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’.
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin’.
Four dead in Ohio.
— Neil Young


Today is the 40th anniversary of the killings at Kent State. National guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. No one was ever prosecuted for the shootings.

The victims were:

* Jeffrey Glenn Miller; 20, shot through the mouth – killed instantly
* Allison B. Krause; 19, fatal left chest wound – died later that day
* William Knox Schroeder; 19, fatal chest wound – died almost an hour later in hospital while waiting for surgery
* Sandra Lee Scheuer; 20, fatal neck wound – died a few minutes later from loss of blood

Jeffrey Miller was from my home town of Plainview, NY. A memorial was erected at Beth’s high school in his memory. The picture above shows Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard.

You can read all about the murders here.
And even more information is available here.