In American Heritage magazine they recounted some of the events, and an officer Myers of the campus police thought the National Guard an over-reaction to some groups of students who had marched off-campus returning late at night alarming the neighbors I remember the article saying. The National Guard started as that, guarding the new nation at its new capital in New York City after the signing of the Constitution. The Congress recently met after 9/11/01 to sort of point out that the collapse had cracked some of the architecture in Federal Hall on the corner of Wall Street, once the nations first meeting place. The "state militias" developed out of amendment and its right to bear arms.
At the time of Kent State shootings there were some guard serving in Vietnam, though the total was small about 7,000 I think I read over the ten years. Some famous people (and not so) got into the Guard to avoid the Selective Service Draft which I was eligible for (former Vice President Dan Quayle, the current sitting President George W. Bush, and others) though in 1969, my high school, Newfield, had the first JROTC Marine Corps in the country in Selden, NY ironically named for the judge who against judicial taboo was a character witness for Susan B. Anthony at her trial in upstate New York for posing as a man to vote in an election. The Army one was in Paul McCartney's manager's town and the Air Force and Navy were started on the West coast, seen as the beginning of the all-volunteer services and the alternative to the draft. One PBS show "Defense Monitor" stated a number of years ago there are now 20,000 of them in mostly poor school districts and at $1 billion a year, they asked "Are they worth it?" back in the early 1990s.
So is the former campus officer correct? Was it a political show of force for "the whole world is watching." (film "Medium Cool") and an overblown reaction to the times that precipitated the anger on campus resulting in the tragedy? Or a nostalgic look at when "National Guard" meant what it says, to guard the nation, not be part of an expeditionary force in a foreign nation. One unit on NYC Bowery, was called out during the Civil War to guard Washington, D.C., after courts martial in the "draft riots" perhaps an earlier cover-up?
No comments:
Post a Comment