Found? Kent State Shell casing from National Guard

[francoH32]

I was looking to find on E bay a used coil for my White's, and a guy who is selling a precision scan 800 is also selling a shell casing from the Kent State shootings that I guess he found with his detector.
I should start hunting by the "grassy knoll" to see if there are any there! Could you imagine what that would be worth? ha ha ha!

 

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[romeo-1]

It would be impossible to authenticate such an item...

 

[Bavaria Mike]

I have been there, at Kent State Ohio, hung out there with a few college buddies but I did not attend college there. The shooting sites are well marked where the victims fell. Would be hard to prove a shell casing came from there and I would have to call BS on it! It is possible. Hope you got your coil HH, Mike

 

[francoH32]

Thanks Mike. The auction ends tonight and I won't have access to a computer after work so hopefully I wont be outbid! I have never been up to Kent, but I did help with a dig at the Fallen timbers battlesite near Toledo Ohio a few years ago. Found a musket ball. That was a thrill of a lifetime! HH to you too!

 

[WV_Detecting]

On a lighter note, the National Guard company that did this was attached to us for our deployment to Iraq to fill our Battalion up...we tried to keep a decent distance from them whenever possible, even though none of the members that were involved with the Kent state thing were part of the unit anymore.

 

[Monty]

Gosh Wv that's a long time to hold a grudge. Put yourself in their shoes. 19 years old, week end warrior with little training and probably no training at all on riots and crowd control. You're stuck out there with a couple hundred or thousand screaming people calling you baby killer even though you never killed anyone, taunting you, people throwing rocks and bottles at you, your adrenalin is pumping, your fight or flee instincts are going full blast.....and then someone panics and fires a shot. Maybe a warning shot into the air, but you don't know that. Maybe someone is shooting at you or your buddies, maybe not, you don't know....what do you do? You can't run, discipline and orders, military justice code and all that ..... so what do you do? And you know who the scapegoats are in that situation, it's the poor darn ignorant PFC. guardsman. I didn't say stupid or dumb, just ignorant as to what to do. Do they blame the C.O.? No, how about the Exec. in charge of training? No. Oh, they may face censure, but who gets court a court martial and put in the brig and perhaps a BCD discharge because of what happened? Put your self in their shoes and you might see it from a different perspective. I felt sorry for them and most of all I grieved for the victims of a situation gone horribly wrong. I don't think anyone went out that day with the intent of hurting anyone, it just happened. It was the times and it was bound to happen somewhere, some time, it just happened to those people instead of you and I. It was a hard lesson learned and thank God things are different now. The guard and reserves are receiving much better training now and the units are no longer rag tag soldiers for the full time military to make the butt of jokes. They have been shouldering a great deal of the responsibility for the action in Iraq, have done a commendable job and I am proud of all of them regardless of what unit they are assigned. I am just as proud of you for serving along side of them. You saw your duty and you did it, right or wrong, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Monty

 

[viper771]

hey im a reservist Haven't gone to iraq yet though. But it is true a lot of the active ppl look down on us and i think its kind of unfair. The reserves are the reserves for a reason

 

[SaintSea]

I wasn't at Kent State, but I well remember the country's reaction. Years later a friend of mine told me he was a student there and on campus at the time of the shooting. What he remembers is a sudden huge influx of Quaaludes that seemed to be easily available everywhere immediately after the event. Hmmmm..... I always wondered about that.
Ruth

 

[Postalrevnant]

hey im a reservist Haven't gone to iraq yet though. But it is true a lot of the active ppl look down on us and i think its kind of unfair. The reserves are the reserves for a reason

Viper I do not include you in what I am about to say because I have never met you before. I was a guardsman for 2 1/2 years then active duty 10 1/2 years. The reason why active members do that to you is because of the fellow guardsmen and reservist before you.

I was deployed on 4 seperate occasions with a total number of about 120 guard or reserve. That's the total count for all 4 times added up. Out of all of them there was only about 5 we could count on.

Many attached with us often hid, and I don't mean out of fear for their lives. I mean hid to try to get out of work or worry of getting stuck on detail (odd job for those not military). Lots would tell us they didn't mind hiding and would flat out say they would run off if the bullets flew. Well as Aviation we didn't get directly attacked and we didn't have reservists or guardsmen on our flights. So I guess I will never know if they would have run or not. Gotta admit the bullets smacking the aircraft certainly scared me, but out of fear of my life I pulled the trigger and laid down as many rounds down range at the enemy as I could.

Anyways, all you can do is keep plugging away and do the best you can. It's a shame that you are being descriminated against because of what peps before you acted like. But I do believe that once the active duty you are with see that you are a good worker and can be counted on they will give you full respect. And when you leave you will leave as a brother to them and not a bother as many of the others did.

That is the same advice I gave 2 of the 5 great ones I saw. Those 2 were assigned to me in my squad. Awesome peps. And they left heads held high. We missed them when they left because they were hard working dependable great soldiers.

The others were too much of a pain. It was harder trying to hunt them down to do something than just getting it done. And unfortunately the climate at the time afforded protection to the additional troops that did not allow us UCMJ action against them for disobeying an order. They did just enough to stay out of trouble, but otherwise was never to be found.

Just keep plugging away. They will respect you when they see that you are a hard worker. The same is true when a new active duty troop comes out of basic / Advanced training. They have to work hard to get respect. I imagine the same is true of most civilian jobs as well.

Anyways, all you can do is your best. IF you are doing your best then hold your head high. For no matter what the service the uniform comes from as long as you do it proud then you are truly a hero as those before you proudly fit the uniform.

Good luck, most of all if you are or will be deployed forward, stay sharp and come back to us safe.

I salute you !!!

SFC Turner U.S. ARMY AVIATION

 

[Postalrevnant]

LoL sorry Franco this was your post. Welcome to the forum Franco. I wish you good luck in all your finds. Please keep us updated with the posts and great things you find.

This is a great family here. Lots to learn and lots of great peps here to listen, talk, help, applaud. You name it.

Good luck with those finds will be looking for those posts.

Postalrevnant

 

[civilman1]

I wasn't at Kent State, but I well remember the country's reaction. Years later a friend of mine told me he was a student there and on campus at the time of the shooting. What he remembers is a sudden huge influx of Quaaludes that seemed to be easily available everywhere immediately after the event. Hmmmm..... I always wondered about that.
Ruth

I remeber those day's:Why whisper when you can "Rorer"....714

 

[knapper]

man i hated that song it inspired

 

[WV_Detecting]

Hey monty, I understand all you stated. For the record I had 12 years guard, no active duty other than my Iraq tour. As far as holding a grudge, I do not, nor was my statement meant in that way, hence the on a lighter note disclaimer at the beginning. There was plenty of "ribbing" going on between the units, they were the unfortunates with a well known history that got picked at. But I can also say they were a good unit with good command. As far as Postals comments are concerned, your experiences reflect badly on the "reservist" or "Guardsman" and stating such reinforces the thought. Not sure of the type of MOS's you were dealing with but if you were around any of the line units you would have found alot of hard workers and only a few shammer's. At least in the case of the various units I interacted with, all of which were primarily tankers, scouts, mortars and infantry. I understand your point of view but it is an over-generalization based on your personal experience. Hell, I could say practically verbatim the same things about the few people I have known from Kentucky as I am sure you could the same for WV. But this attitude against Guardsmen and reservists just passes constantly through the Active duty ranks and most soldiers hold a prejudice against them long before they have ever had any experience or dealings with the citizen-soldier. And it sucks from our standpoint because we are constantly looked down upon by the active guys. Enough said, I am getting into one of your long and pointless rants.