(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to "The Journal".

I'm Steve Kendall.

The events of May 4th, 1970 at Kent State are etched in Ohio and national history.

Much has been written, much has been said, but at Ohio Northern University, a project is underway to provide another perspective and save some of this history before it's gone forever.

Joining us is Dr. David Strittmatter, assistant professor of history at Ohio Northern University, Dr. Strittmatter, welcome to "The Journal".

- Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Steve.

- And we'll be hearing from some of your students later in the show, but let's talk about what's called the Kent Guardsmen Oral History Project.

Walk us through the process of how the idea came about and then how the process has worked and what your goals are for this.

- Sure.

Well, the Kent State Guardsmen Oral History Project began almost two years ago and it started as a class project.

I was looking for an meaningful assignment at the end of a semester for a public history class.

I only had 10 students and they were all upperclassmen and I thought this might be something that they would take with them and make a difference, as well.

- Right.

Yeah, because as I mentioned in the intro, this is an oral history, and as time goes on, there are fewer and fewer of these guardsmen around to talk to.

So, talk about the process.

So how did you go about finding these folks, 'cause we're talking something that happened more than 50 years ago, basically.

So how were you able to find these folks and then how did you go about approaching them to say, "Hey, would you like to talk about this?"

- So there are government reports, there are contemporary newspapers that spell this story out in some detail and these stories and these reports have names attached.

And so, the internet is a helpful tool.

There are plenty of online phone books that provide addresses and such.

So my students and I, we just Google-searched and see if we could find these fellows.

And sure enough, as you mentioned, I mean, this happened 50 years ago.

So most of these men are in their 70s or early 80s.

and many of them still live in Ohio, up in Northeast Ohio where this terrible event happened.

So we crafted a letter and then we sent out dozens and dozens of letters.

We were first going after the guardsmen that had been on Blanket Hill at the time of the shooting, which is about 75 or 80 guardsmen, and then we also include included those guardsmen whose names appeared in contemporary news articles as well.

So our initial target was about 100 or so individuals and some got back to us and... - Some didn't.

- Many didn't, yeah.

- And when you talked with the ones that, and I guess it's a delicate subject, and I know that in reading some of the coverage of this after becoming aware of the story, as you said, not everybody wanted to talk about it.

And there was a range of opinions among the people that you did talk to about what had happened that day, whether it was right, or it was wrong, or whatever.

So when you were talking with them, how did you, how were you able to frame your questions in a way that didn't put people on the defensive?

How did you go about that?

- Well, before we got them in front of a camera or I had them on a recorder of some sort, I had to convince them to sit for an interview.

They didn't have to do that.

They did that on their own with their own free will.

So at times there were some lengthy phone conversations that happened before the actual recording occurred, where I had to convince them, in a way, that we were coming at this project with a neutral perspective, that we weren't trying to tell a specific story.

We were merely giving them a platform to tell their story.

- Because in a lot of cases, this is, as I think is mentioned in some of the coverage of your project, this is the untold story.

Most of these gentlemen had never been approached in this way to talk about it in that kind of a setting.

- Yeah, you're right.

The media stories in the aftermath of this terrible episode, it turned, rather quickly.

There was a Gallup poll that was done in a couple, I think at two or three days after the shooting, amongst the American public.

And they were asked, "Who do you side with in the shooting?"

and 58% of respondents sided with the guardsmen, whereas only 11% sided with the protesters.

And then the remaining quarter was undecided.

But that turned, that changed gears in the months and years that have followed, and you don't have to look too far.

I mean, you can go to YouTube and you can see these anniversary segments that exist.

There are only a couple, three, four, five, six minutes long, but in the common narrative of this event, the guardsmen are castigated and vilified, largely.

- I know that again, this is a question that is big, big picture sort of thing, but what do you think, or do you have an idea of what the catalyst was for the switching of, "Hey, the guardsmen," most people thought the guardsmen were well within their rights to do what they did, and then suddenly they became the bad guys in this.

Was there something what may have caused that change of opinion?

- Well, I think this is... Let me answer that question this way.

There was a guardsman who interviewed for this project by the name of Bill Herthneck.

Again, you can listen to the full interview on the website for this project, and he talks about the media coverage.

He says, and he goes on for some time to describe this.

He just says that the media coverage was so one-sided in the telling of this.

And they did not talk about, the media did not talk about where the Guard had been the previous days.

I mean, they'd come off a trucker strike where striking truckers were throwing bricks at scab drivers from overpasses.

They were tired and they were worn out, and the media stories did not talk about students on campus at the level that may be some of the guardsmen feel kind of short changed them in the end.

- Again, you would probably know more about this, too.

Were these guardsmen trained for this kind of thing or where they simply sort of, "Hey, you need to go out there and hold the line."

Did they have any real training in what we would consider a protest or riot control or anything?

Or were they kind of going in, to some degree, in that regard, unarmed in terms of dealing with people in general in that setting?

- Yeah, my student Jarrod, who will join us at a later segment, has a pretty good anecdote for this, but I will say, these guardsman, they really were weekend warriors, in a way.

The slogan that the National Guard used for years was, what, "A weekend a month and two weeks in the summer", or "two weeks a year".

And that's the case.

All of these fellows that we interviewed had jobs, many of them had families, and this was not- - What they believed they were signing up for.

- I think that's a pretty fair way to say this.

One guardsman, who has a phenomenal interview, Keith Crilow, he had just graduated from Wittenberg, down in Springfield, and he enlisted in the National Guard because he wanted to keep his job so he could pay off student loans.

He didn't want to get drafted and go off to Vietnam.

He needed to work.

And, and again, I mean, I think...

The motivation for many of these enlisted men was to remain at home and continue with life as they knew it.

- I think, one of the things that's pointed out in the article, and we can talk about it when we come back, is the fact that many of them, as was the custom then, was part of the texture of the country, was they had enlisted in the Guard to avoid being drafted, or to at least have that different, as you said, a different opportunity to serve in that way.

And suddenly now they find themselves actually in what is almost like a war zone to some degree, too.

So when we come back, we'll be joined by one of your students and back in just a moment with more on the Kent Guardsmen Oral History Project.

You're on "The Journal".

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal".

The subject of tonight's episode is the Kent Guardsmen Oral History Project being done at Ohio Northern University.

We're joined as we were in the first segment by Dr. David Strittmatter, assistant professor of history of Ohio Northern.

And also, in this segment, we're joined by one of his students who's been participating in the project, Jarrod Jones.

And Jarrod, I want to start with you.

Talk a little bit about your involvement, how you obviously were in the public history class, but talk a little bit about your involvement and how this went for you as you got involved in this, what things you found out that maybe you didn't expect to find out?

- Yeah, well, as Dr. Strittmatter said, I got into the project just by being in his advanced public history class, which, at the time, I thought that it was just be a class project.

I did not foresee it becoming a multi semester, at this point multi-year, project.

I was involved initially and partially in crafting the letter that we would send to the guardsmen.

I was also involved in the creation of some of the interview questions, and eventually became involved in three interviews, three in-person interviews of guardsmen, and then also transcribing some of those interviews from audio to having actual written documents of what the guardsmen said.

And I've learned more about Kent State than I ever thought I would learn about the Kent State shootings.

You hear the same event over and over again from different people.

And each time they tell you something new, but they also tell you a lot of what you already know.

So it really gets burned into your brain, the entire day.

- Now, and I guess Dr. Strittmatter, obviously you turned a lot of this over to the students, or a portion of it, and I guess that's part of that whole learning experience.

So you were obviously comfortable with allowing the students to have that kind of involvement, helping write the letter, do the interviews, frame the questions.

So talk about how that worked, because it's a small class, but still, you're turning over some pretty serious subject matter to students.

That seemed to be a benefit obviously then?

- I think part of my teaching pedagogy is to create or give students these high-impact experiential opportunities that, of all their four years in college, this is something that they're gonna remember.

In Jarrod's case, he's worked on, he's conducted three of these interviews and I think the array of subjects that he has interviewed speaks to this, the variety in the project, too.

The first guardsman he interviewed was actually a conscientious objector.

So he was not on Blanket Hill, he was on campus at the time of the shooting, and he threw down his gun and refused to serve again.

And he actually had to go to federal court to be ... - [Steve] Exempted or whatever?

- To be discharged from the Guard.

Jarrod's also interviewed a guardsman who fired a shot on Blanket Hill.

And then he's interviewed another guardsman who just happens to be the guardsman that has been interviewed, about the Kent State shootings, more than any other member of the Ohio National Guard.

- Now, Jarrod, do you think, because you are younger, that someone who may have had more background in this or may have been alive when it happened, do you think that was an advantage because you were coming at it from kind of a fresh perspective, maybe, for the folks you interviewed?

- Yeah, I think that not having the baggage of having lived through an event always makes it easier to view things objectively, because, even though I have my own opinions and own views on the event, it was very easy to put those aside and try to come at things either objectively, when you're analyzing what you've gotten from a interview, or sometimes trying to give the interviewee the benefit of the doubt when you're interviewing them.

It's much easier to do that when you haven't lived through the event and you've only ever seen recordings of it, or seen interviews or transcriptions about it.

- Now, Dr. Strittmatter, when you talked with students about this, how much guidance or what kind of instructions did you give them about how to go about these interviews?

Did you give them pretty general guidelines or you were a little more specific about maybe how to approach some of these guys?

- Well, before they sat for and conducted an interview, I provided them fairly extensive reading and news clips, as well.

If they were going to conduct an interview, they needed to know the story, they needed to be familiar with this.

And I think knowing something, or quite a bit, about this event, allowed them to ask follow up questions that kind of broke from the 15 or 20 odd questions that they had in front of them.

And I don't think you can do that if you don't know the story, if you don't know the history.

- Jarrod, because you were probably giving them, I think as Dr. Strittmatter said, a platform that they hadn't had before, so at least the ones that wanted to talk to you, they were probably more open then to talking about things maybe in greater depth than they would have in some other setting.

- It's very different interviewing somebody in like a newsroom to sitting down with somebody in an office building or a church, that we interviewed one guardsman in, and getting to sit there for 30 or 45 minutes and really give them the floor to get out everything.

Some of these guardsmen have been interviewed before, but some of them have not spoke about this in 35, 40, even 50 years.

And some don't even talk about it to their families.

And so, you're taking a man in his 70s who's been carrying this weight with him for 50 years, and then he spills it all out to you in the basement of a church.

It's a very emotional thing and it's also a very good opportunity to get a lot of history that hasn't been covered by anybody else before.

- To build on Jarrod's comment as the interviewers in this oral history project, we're not prosecuting attorneys on a cross examination.

We're not investigative reporters grilling a subject.

We're not part of the story.

We are merely allowing them to tell their story.

And I think Jarrod has a couple of instances where a guardsman that he interviewed, Jarrod knew the history, and then what the guardsman was saying didn't quite... - Ah, match.

- Parallel that, that historical narrative.

- In a case where that happened, how did you work with to kind of... Did you tell them "Well, okay," but did you kind of then drill them a little bit to say, "Well, that doesn't seem to match up with this," or how did you deal with a situation like that, Jarrod?

When somebody was kind of giving you a story that didn't match up with what you were pretty sure were the facts of that situation?

- Well, in this case with Ron Snyder, the National Guardsman.

In the Cleveland "Plain Dealer", the Cleveland newspaper article, he said that he had a police baton with him that was not standard issue at Kent State because in his civilian job, he was a police officer.

And then in the interview, I asked him about that police baton and he claimed that he had not carried that, at Kent State, in our interview.

I wanted to press him on it and I did press him on it a bit, but you kind of have to run a cost benefit analysis.

Because I have no legal authority to keep him there, if I make him upset, he will leave.

- Yeah, you don't want him to shut down and then you don't get any other information that you would probably have gotten if you- - [Jarrod] Exactly.

- You walk a fine line there.

Jarrod, thanks.

Thanks for coming on.

We're gonna be joined by one of your colleagues, another student, in the next segment.

We'll be back in just a moment with the Kent Guardsman Oral History Project from Ohio Northern University on "The Journal".

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal".

Our topic is the Kent Guardsman Oral History Project, underway, and has been for some time, at Ohio Northern University.

Our guest in the segment, as we have for the previous two segments, is Dr. David Strittmatter, assistant professor of history of Ohio Northern University and the faculty member at the point of this, and we're joined by one of his students, Jordan Clagg, who also has been participating in the project.

Jordan, welcome to the show and talk a little about your involvement and what you found out going through this really serious topic and what it's meant for you to do this.

- Sure.

So I actually found about this project in the hallway of the history building at Ohio Northern.

A professor stopped me and said, "Hey, you should really consider doing this project.

"We're going to Cleveland this weekend "and it'll be an all-day thing "and you should come along."

And I thought about it and I decided that it should be a good idea to go and join in on this project.

So I go in to that Saturday, not really knowing what to expect, but I think we had a good day, we had an informational day, and I think I learned a lot, too, so I'm glad I hopped on.

- Now, is this something you've ever, did you ever think you'd be involved in a project like this or a topic like this?

Or is this you kind of went in, just saying, "Let's see what happens"?

- Yeah, kind of both.

That semester, I took an oral history class, too, so that was kind of helpful to learn how to interview and, you know, interviewing is definitely a skill that you have to work on.

So that was helpful taking that class at the same time as going to do this project.

- Now, Dr. Strittmatter, was there anything when you were looking at the footage (indistinct) that did jump out or surprise you, that someone was willing to talk about or something that hadn't been mentioned before or talked about before, in the course of this?

- Well, I would say if, if the viewers at home, if you want to listen to one interview in the project, and so far, we've had 12, I would listen to the first one that we conducted and it's with, it was a sergeant in the National Guard, a fellow by the name of Matthew McManus, and he was the first guardsman that responded to our invitation.

And, I tell my students, he was the Holy Grail because he was one of the eight guardsmen that was indicted.

And he spent his decade of the '70s periodically going up to Cleveland for trial proceedings.

And there are a couple of moments in his interview that it was tough to be in the room for, and it's tough to watch, too, when you see someone in their 70s, and they are... Quaking, shivering, as they recount.

- I'm sorry to (indistinct) And I guess in your case too, Jordan, you're asking these guys to relive something that maybe, they didn't really wanna talk about, or hadn't talked about in a long time and that's gotta be a touchy situation, how to get them to open up.

So, you talked about learning how to interview.

What was the technique you used to get them to relax and feel it was okay to talk with you?

- I think that as long as you're a willing listener and you're an active listener, I think that you can craft your questions in your interview to better try to paint the picture of what happened and hear about their experiences.

So it's certainly a fine line between trying to learn more, but also you have to interact with them as human beings.

- You learn how to read the room, in essence, with each and each of them being different, different personality, that sort of thing.

- [Jordan] Definitely.

I guess, for either one of them, what was the first question you asked them?

How did you get them to start talking?

Was there a starter question that you use to say, or "Here's what I'm here for.

"Let's just relax and talk," or what was the lead line to get them to feel at all comfortable talking?

- Yeah, the order of the questions is important.

The first maybe three or four questions are, are kind of those introductory softball questions, just so they can get comfortable speaking to a recorder or speaking in front of the camera.

And this is really, "How did you join the National Guard?"

And it really varied, depending on who was answering the question.

One of the interview subjects, Jeffrey Jones, enlisted before he graduated from high school.

He was on the line on Blanket Hill and he was 19 years old at the time.

And he'll say in his interview that he did not talk about this for about 30 years until he felt comfortable or felt that enough time had passed where he could talk about this.

- And that's a good point too, because, we touched on it a little bit, but in many cases, or at least some cases, these were people who were the same age as the people they were across the hill from, or down the hill from, and which was not what they had anticipated doing.

I know earlier, when you talked about the fact they had come off some pretty intense activity just within the days before that, so they were put in a very difficult position and without a lot of rest and a lot of command and control, really.

So it was tough for them, but it's interesting.

We've got just a couple of moments, I guess.

Jordan, was there ever, when you got done with the interviews, was there ever a point where you said 'Wow, there was one other question," or "I wish I could have gotten them "to talk more about this," or did you feel pretty comfortable, when you were done with your interviews, that you'd been able to get the information that they wanted to talk about out?

- I think looking back, you can always say, "Oh, I wish I did that," or, "I wish we did this," but I think, overall, we did a pretty good job going and talking to these people and learning more about their experiences.

I think that's the most important thing, that we gave them an active audience and we just were there to listen.

- Yeah, and it's pretty impressive because, as we've talked about, it was really, probably the first time someone had approached them with that objective in mind, versus just interviewing them about the event again, and the same questions that they'd heard a lot of times were questions they didn't want to hear ever again.

This gave them an opportunity to talk about themselves and about the other perspective.

I know one of the news articles said it was the untold story of this.

So pretty impressive approach to it and to get that perspective, which none of us had heard before, in a lot of cases.

So now Dr. Strittmatter.

if people want to find out more, what's the best way, what's the website or where can they go to find all of this information that you've put together so far?

- Sure.

Well, we have a website it's KentGuardVoices1970.com, and on that website, you can listen to splices, so segments of interviews.

There are hyperlinks to the full interviews and of course, we are continuing with the project.

So if you were a guardsman that was deployed to Kent in May of 1970, we would love to hear from you.

So please, you can email me, my contact information is on the website.

- Great, great.

And it's an untold story, a story that needs to be told to give better perspective to that, as you said, that kind of very difficult day in May, back in 1970.

Appreciate you being on, Dr. David Strittmatter, and of course your students, Jarrod Jones and Jordan Clagg.

you can check us out at WBGU.org, and of course you can watch us every Thursday night on WBGU on PBS.

We will see you again, next time on "The Journal".

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