Page 6 â€” Tuesday, September 30, 2014 Loss of Innocence The Indiana Gazette The Indiana Evening Gazette: May 5, 1970 Kent State forever haunted local man 3 Indiana women bore witness to campus carnage By JAN SHELLENBARGER news@indianagazette.net news@indianagazette.net hirteen seconds in May 1970, and the life of the late Dale Risinger changed forever. A 1968 graduate of Indiana High School, he had started college an outgoing, friendly 17-year-old, his mother Shirley recently said. After those 13 seconds, he became less open, less trusting, as if the world had let him down. The way his mother sees it, the world had. Dale Risinger was a sophomore at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, when four students were shot and killed by National Guard troops trying to break up an anti-war protest rally. Many accounts of that campus nightmare exist, and details in each vary. There has been â€œPEOPLE HE had ment,disagreefor exbeen taught to ample, on why respect no longer the guard members warranted that. It opened fire, changed the rest who ordered the action, of his life.â€? whether a sniperâ€™s shot Shirley Risinger precipitated the exchange from White Township law enforcement. But these basic facts remain: The shootings came four days after the United Statesâ€™ invasion of Cambodia, which triggered several days of anti-war protests at Kent State. On May 4, university officials banned a planned protest and National Guardsmen, called in by the Ohio governor at the request of Kentâ€™s mayor, tried to prevent students from assembling. Students threw rocks and yelled profanities at the troops, and refused to disperse. For reasons still uncertain, the guardsmen fired 67 shots in 13 seconds, killing four and wounding another nine. Risinger was just passing the scene of the confrontation, as it happened, not because he wanted to be part of the protest or even be a witness. He was on the way to take a final exam â€” an exam that Risinger said had already been called off though he didnâ€™t realize it. â€œHe didnâ€™t know what was going on,â€? Shirley Risinger remembered. â€œPeople on campus, for the most part, didnâ€™t know what was going ne of the watershed events of the Vietnam War protests occurred at Kent State University in Ohio when four students were killed and nine injured after National Guard troops opened fire on May 4, 1970, following three days of unrest on campus. Three Indiana-area residents were at Kent State that semester, but never realized until years later how their lives intersected with one another. Dr. Ruth Riesenman was a graduate student at Kent State and a director of TriTowers, where she managed Koonce Hall, an all-female building. Each of the three buildings â€” Koonce, Wright and Leebrick â€” were 10 stories high, housed 600 students and were â€œtied together by a rotunda where students tended to congregate,â€? according to Riesenman. Male students lived in Wright Hall, and Leebrick was a co-ed building. Anger around the 30,000student campus was growing after President Richard Nixon announced that U.S. combat forces were invading Cambodia and escalating the Vietnam War. A small rally was held on the afternoon of Friday, May 2, 1970, on campus, with students burying a copy of the United States Constitution. Riesenman remembers the students announced â€œif a nation could launch a war against Cambodia without declaring their intentions, then the Constitution as we know it was dead.â€? Friday night saw an increase in violence, particularly in the downtown area where students gathered, with several store windows broken, objects thrown at police and a bonfire in the street. After police dispersed the crowds, the town and campus were somewhat quiet until Saturday evening, when more violence broke out. â€œMy apartment was in Koonce Hall, and I could O By MARY ANN SLATER T TOM PEEL/Gazette SHIRLEY RISINGER displayed a photo of her son, Dale Risinger, a student at Kent State University when the shootings occurred. on.â€? Immediately after the shooting, Dale Risinger headed away from the commotion and to a nearby hall to find out what had happened. But that was easier said than done â€” for Dale, his family in White Township and ultimately the rest of the American public as even today controversy remains over some details. The campus shut down for weeks after the shootings. Risinger said her son, like many other students, spent that time mulling their future at Kent State. â€œEveryone wanted off campus. Everyone wanted to leave. But they were tied to it because of the grades.â€? There were too many course credits to lose in a college transfer. Although Dale Risinger decided at least at first to stay the course at Kent State, other changes were in the wind. â€œHe was lost,â€? his mother said. Once gregarious, he turned inward. â€œHe became less outgoing.â€? With old friends and old passions he seemed distant. â€œIt was like if he didnâ€™t keep contact, it (the shootings) would go away.â€? Going forward seemed difficult for him, too. â€œHe was very cautious about whom he made friends.â€? â€œPeople he had been taught to respect no longer warranted that,â€? Risinger said. â€œIt changed the rest of his life.â€? But there had been excitement and promise during his first year at Kent, and Dale Risinger enjoyed dormitory living and even became an activities director at his residence hall. But even before that freshman year ended, he had concerns, his mother said. Anti- war sentiment continued to mount and rapid changes in social mores and attitudes caused friction in the residence hall. â€œThings were getting heated up so badly. He didnâ€™t want to get involved.â€? Risinger believes, from what she learned from her son and later from what she read, that campus outsiders from Students for a Democratic Society, a prominent leftist group of the 1960s, had its own agenda. She and her husband, the late John N. Risinger, let their son live with several other students in a cottage located several miles off campus by Brady Lake. The distance gave him some relief from campus tension but it also was a big reason why he knew little about the turmoil in the days preceding the shootings. But if Dale Risinger wanted to avoid groups such as the SDS, he also had a new wariness about law enforcement around Kent even before the shootings of May 4. â€œThere was a strong antagonism between (Kent area) police and students there,â€? Risinger said. â€œThose kids got a lot of criticism.â€? Much of the tension had to do with student demands about the war and a more open campus, and Kent police and town officials often saw them as rowdy troublemakers. For many years of the Vietnam War, young men could get a college deferment from military service, so among many at Kent, there was the attitude that male students were just there to avoid the draft. Male students were especially eyed Continued on Page 8 DR. RUTH RIESENMAN see what looked like a couple thousand students marching around the TriTowers,â€? Riesenman said. â€œI thought there was going to be another rally.â€? Instead, the students marched to the ROTC building and burned it to the ground. Approximately 1,000 National Guardsmen had been sent to Kent State that day to quell the protests, but didnâ€™t arrive on campus until approximately 10 p.m., when they used tear gas to break up the crowds gathering at the site of the fire. â€œOur buildings were far enough from the ROTC building that we didnâ€™t hear the sirens, but learned about the fire from students coming back to the residence halls,â€? Riesenman said. Sunday brought a beautiful spring day. â€œThe sun was shining and the flowers were blooming,â€? Riesenman said. â€œThat was the day someone took a photo which became famous of a girl giving flowers to the National Guard. I really thought by Monday things would be back to normal.â€? Later that evening, though, the towers were surrounded by a platoon of guardsmen, and some of the students from Wright Hall were throwing objects from the windows and yelling obscenities at the troops. The commander of the troops, Gen. Robert Canterbury, told the director of the hall: â€œYou put those boys to bed or weâ€™re coming in,â€? Riesenman Continued on Page 8 DIESEL TRUCK OWNERS P> <:G BFIKHO> RHNK =B>L>E IBK?HKF:G<>% >E>E LRLM>FL :G= K = >G@BG>L' P> <:KKR I>K?HKF:G<> KL AB@A ?EHP :BK ?BEM>KL EHP K>LMKBQA:NLM >QA:NLM ;K:D>L% @:N@>L FHNGML ?HK =H=@> K:F OR We recognize the sacrifices of our nationâ€™s heroes! MUMAU DIESEL SERVICE Major General (Retired) Rod Ruddock 0+-&,.-&,*,/ KM' -++ P'% LA>EH