It is for boomers. 😜

Even in Ohio, Kent State was not treated as the horror it was. People in my grandparents’ and even in my parents’ age cohort felt that students deserved to be punished for a disruptive and destructive action (setting the ROTC office on fire). People will still say, “They should have been peaceful.”

I think it depends on which circles you ran in. I grew up in Kent and had family on the hill. So, yeah kind of a big meaningful thing and a horror. You're right there were trials and my godfather got on the jury and annualed it. They ended up dropping the cases after, rather than retry them.

For the conservative law and order types this was obviously a different experience, but it did serve as a touch point and still does otherwise why reference it at all? Everyone in this conversation seemingly knows the importance. Whether it should I suppose is a debate.