May 4th, 2010. The fortieth anniversary of the death of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard reminded me that the tragedy was no aberration but another page in our long history of governmental violence exercised in the name of Law and Order.
One of the nine wounded students commented "Kent State was our nation's most popular murder"
But what of the ordinary men who pulled the triggers? The Guardsmen who did the killing?
Some, described in my book, were horrified by the bloodshed. For others, it was easier for them to shoot rather than break ranks and not conform to the behavior of their peers.
Rather than risk isolation, rejection and ostracism by their friends, they lied and covered up what they did . For the peer group exerts tremendous pressure on individual behavior obscuring right from wrong.
"Four dead?....they should have killed forty"....is still heard today after forty years denying the value of a human life.
Norman Weissman
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A novel based on fact, dramatizing the Kent State Tragedy of May 4th 1970.
About Norman
- Norman Weissman
- After a 42 year career as a writer-director of many award winning films and television programs, Norman Weissman has written two novels and a memoir. Determined to oppose the silence in which lies become history; the author makes his reply in art to tell of all that he has witnessed during more than half a century of filming at home and overseas.
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