Question/Problem 4: How and why did the Vietnam War divide Americans?

The following excerpt describes an incident at Kent State University in 1970:

The storm of protest created by the invasion of Cambodia dwarfed previous outcries against the Vietnam War. Public indignation was heard loudest on the nation's campuses. From one coast to another, students took to the streets, blocking traffic, starting bonfires, and smashing the windows of federal buildings. Student anger might have subsided had not a tragic drama unfolded on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970. A crowd of five or six hundred students was demonstrating against the war. After the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) building was set afire, the governor of Ohio called out the National Guard. Students threw rocks and paving stones at the soldiers. Suddenly there was a crack of rifle fire. To the horror of the students who had collected, four of their number lay dead on the ground and nine lay wounded.

News of the student deaths spread across the United States as fast as radio and television could carry it. Within hours, angry students all around the nation had begun to demonstrate. The newspaper editors of the major eastern colleges and universities met and agreed to run a common editorial calling upon 'the entire academic community of this country to engage in a nationwide university strike to protest widening U.S. participation in the war in southeastern Asia.'

From E.B. Fincher, The Vietnam War (New York: Franklin Watts, 1980), pp. 52-54.

The May 4 rally began as a peaceful assembly on the Commons-- the traditional site of student assemblies. Even if the Guard had authority to prohibit a peaceful gatheringħħa question that is at least debatable-- the decision to disperse the noon rally was a serious error. The timing and manner of the dispersal were disastrous. Many students were legitimately in the area as they went to and from class. The rally was held during the crowded noontime luncheon period. The rally was peaceful, and there was no apparent impending violence. Only when the Guard attempted to disperse the rally did some students react violently.

Under these circumstances, the Guard's decision to march through the crowd for hundreds of yards up and down a hill was highly questionable. The crowd simply swirled around them and reformed again after they had passed...

Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.

From The Annals of America, vol. 19, pp. 133-134