UWEC Students React

In the immediate aftermath of the Kent and Jackson State shootings, it became clear that even though the politically active students at UWEC held different sentiments regarding Vietnam before the shootings, the events at Kent and Jackson State did more to unify these groups than to polarize them. It was the relationship that these UWEC students held, outside of political beliefs, that brought the students together in their solidarity towards the students at Kent and Jackson State. The differences in the views that the students held regarding the Vietnam War, did not result in any animosity or resentment between them. In his interview, former student Keith Pitsch recalled that while there was a silent minority who were indifferent to the Kent and Jackson State shootings, there was a vast majority of students that were affected by these events; that were upset about what had happened and that wanted to do something for those students that were killed.

“[It had] a profound effect on students to find that four colleagues were killed in Kent.”

--Andrea Gapko, 1970s UWEC Graduate. Interview on October 25, 2012.--

“[W]e were definitely outraged. There were various people who were indifferent.[but]... I’d say the majority of us...were upset, very upset and ready to do something.”

--Keith Pitsch, 1970s UWEC Graduate, Responding to the Kent and Jackson State shootings. Interview on October 18, 2012.--

While the relationships that the students held with one another kept them from blaming each other, that blame still needed to be directed somewhere. For the students, that was towards the federal government. Even on smaller campuses, and knowing that the federal government would not give their protests a second glance, the students of  the Wisconsin State University system directed their anger at the government that allowed the tensions to propagate to a level where students, like them, ended up killed.

Across several accounts recalling the events of this time, the former students of UWEC were uniform in their words, stating that the students of Kent state were killed, rather than dead. This choice of words explicitly shows that the students blame was not directed at the deceased, but their killers. 

“The leadership that man [Leonard Haas] showed that day kept us from going down the track that so many campuses did.”

--Carole Halberg, 1970s UWEC Graduate, regarding the violence on other campuses. Interview on October 16, 2012.

Local Sentiments

" I cursed the goddamn kids for provoking the soldiers. And I hated the bastard troops for pouring forth more gas than needed."

- Eau Claire resident Earl Gustafson, in a local news opinion piece about the Kent State shooting. May 14, 1970    

In the wake of the shootings at Kent and Jackson State, there was a mixed reaction in Eau Claire about who should be held accountable for the tragedies. Students attending UWEC when interviewed by the Spectator, a local newspaper often echoed similar sentiments of blaming the Ohio guardsmen for the killings and expressing sympathies for those killed. Bill Jensen a senior student when asked about the killings responded by saying “The students being killed really hit home. Should the National Guard have been there? Should they have loaded guns?” Another student, Mark when asked about Kent told the Spectator “Everybody in a university feels repressed because we’re living in a society that eats its sons and daughters for breakfast.”

At the same time some Eau Claire residents, when asked about the shootings expressed support for the Ohio guardsmen and blamed the shootings on the students. One community member, Wayne Johnson told the Spectator when asked how he felt about the deaths of the four students at Kent State responded with, “It doesn’t bother me at all,” and claimed that “The National Guard aren’t trained, and they probably panicked. I don’t see why the students have to riot against Cambodia in the first place.”

Jean Collier, a student who at the time was one of the organizers of a community interaction project to promote the exchange of ideas was also interviewed by the Spectator. When asked about her and the other students' interactions with the community she told the newspaper how she and the other students received “mixed responses,” and how “They had doors slammed in their faces…they were told to leave politely or not politely.”

Patriotism

A common thread throughout this period was the question: what does it mean to be a real American? Those speaking out against the students and anti-war movements often called them “unpatriotic” for not supporting the war. But the Vietnam era was shifting what patriotism meant. As historian Michael Sherry notes, patriotism was originally a multi-ethnic idea with its enemies outside of its borders. At heart, living in the US and not actively betraying it made you a patriot. This communal identity started to dissolve in the McCarthyism of the Cold War and discontent surrounding Vietnam. Eventually, some groups began to tie their identities to their support of the US government. Sherry asserts that Vietnam era patriotism “devolved into a rigid patriotic orthodoxy—tightly linked with political and cultural conservatism” and “baldly insistent on a singular version of the American past.”

In this view, patriotism was a way to regain power on the home front: hostile not to other countries, but other Americans. Although the full force of this new idea would take decades to culminate, those who restricted rioters and blamed students for their own deaths may likely have seen themselves as patriotic Americans doing the right thing for their country.