My Vietnam War Experience-- Part 5: The Cambodian "Incursion" and Kent State

Protests against the Vietnam War continued at Northern Illinois and across the country.  Some of the other schools had their protests turn quite violent, but not so much in DeKalb.

However, on April 30, 1970, President Nixon went on TV to say we had had an "incursion" into Cambodia to cut off supplies the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were receiving in South Vietnam.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Well this set off a powder keg of protests at colleges all across the country, including at Northern.

It all came to a head on May 4, when National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting at Kent State University in Ohio and four were killed and several wounded.  Some of the students had been protesting, others watching and some walking by on the way to and from classes.

Things got violent at campuses all over the country, although NIU was tense, but there was no violence.

That is until Father Groppi, a noted civil rights activist from Milwaukee, was going to come to campus.  That is when we started hearing that the anti-war people were planning some really big things.

If you want to read all my previous posts on this, hit the My Vietnam War Experience label below.

Things Really Heating Up.  --RoadDog