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SANDRA: (continues) street, we started to smell teargas fanning over the town.... there wasn't much wind that night, just enough to spread it around like a drop of oil spreading over a glass of water. REPORTER: This was Saturday night, May 2, 1970. These same National Guardsmen had been out on another civil disorder....a labor strike. They were tired and hungry. Now they were coming onto campus, the seat of a natural enemy of sorts. Here was a nation choosing up sides for an internal fight. More than four hundred college campuses had been closed down when the White House delivered the famous "incursion" announcement that a war no one wanted was being expanded. Berkeley was the likely place for real trouble. Why not Columbia University? But, they're the extremes....let's confine ourselves to where we started this soliloquy, here in the quiet of the midwest, here in Ohio. For sake of discussion, let us assume the National Guard moved onto our campus with live ammunition in their M-l rifles. SANDRA: I am a major in speech therapy and my concern was with this little boy with a lisp. Most of my morning had been spent with him and now I wanted to get back to my room....I still had that exam facing me. But the campus was a mess. I came out of Taylor Hall and saw all these people coming around from the Pagoda and Blanket Hill. It was the long way, but I headed for the parking in front of Prentice Hall to get away from the turmoil....it was in that parking lot.... (She places an M-l bullet upright on the pedestal. Departs.) Page 8 |