Kent State, Northwoods, and the SCA

This day is the anniversary of the Kent State University shootings, where the Ohio National Guard, faced with unruly demonstrators against the Vietnam War, shot several of them including people who were not part of the demonstration. I was in university at the time in the United States and opposition to the war was pretty high. This however got many people who had not actively protested the war very angry. The Kent State demonstrations had been a reaction to the invasion of Cambodia, a major expansion of the war that Richard Nixon had promised to wind down when he was elected. The invasion of Cambodia and the shootings at Kent State and also at Jsckson State University in Mississippi got me and thousands of others to take part in antiwar marches who had never done so before.

Two days before the shootings, and a week before the marches against the Kent State killings, I had taken part in the first tournament held by the SCA in East Lansing Michigan. Lke the first SCA tournament four years earlier, it was a great success that inspired us to do more. As a result our Michigan State University – based group became the barony of Northwoods, part of the Middle Kingdom, which was headquartered in the Chicago area." NorthWoods for a good while was the largest and most dynamic SCA group between the two coasts. I have often wondered if we had scheduled our tournament on May 9 instead of May 2,1970, whether we would have had the heart or the interest in putting on Northwoods' oh so successful first SCA tournament? And if not, what would the history of the SCA have looked like?

How time flies…

Our history grad students were presenting historiographical surveys of their major research papers to the members of the history graduate faculty. One paper was about the representation of the Vietnam War in comic books of the time. It turned out that I was the only person in the room who remembered the Vietnam War. Man, that was fast!

A student working on that project made the statement that it was one of the most important events in American history. I said, "Really? I was around back then and I don't think so. Yes it was important, but it was no Compromise of 1850."

Much mirth resulted.

You will wait in vain for a historian of modern times to make such a good witticism about the Middle Ages.


Image: John Brown at Harpers Ferry.

Remember the Vietnam War? Phil Paine reminds us

For some of us, the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been all too reminiscent of the Vietnam war -- murky and unrealistic motivations, vast expense at home and terrific casualties abroad, fantastic (in the sense of dream-like) official explanations of how it will all work out fine. One difference is that because lots of middle-class kids were drafted into the Vietnam war, there was vigorous opposition to it by people whom the government could not (entirely) ignore. And then there were other factors...

Phil Paine reminds us of the strength of that opposition at http://www.philpaine.com/?p=4259. I would be interested in how many younger people, American and otherwise, are aware of the incidents he discusses.