The year I was a junior in high school, four college students were shot on a campus in Ohio.

The setting was Kent State, a public university.

On May 4, 1970, a rally protesting the expansion of the United States’ involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia went sideways; 28 National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students.

Kent State wasn’t the only site of pushback then. College protests were escalating. There was a real desire on the part of many students to resist any kind of escalation of war because, well, they didn’t want to be a part of it.

College deferments – that is, enrollment in college – had proven to be an effective way to avoid the draft.

At least until that spring.

In April 1970, then-President Richard Nixon announced he would end undergraduate student draft deferments and by April 23 it was law. It meant drafted students could only postpone their service until the end of the semester.

So, teenagers, despite not wanting to, were being shipped off to war. That draft reform is still in place today.

The students were also protesting the presence of the National Guard on campus.

Following a fractious weekend, maybe 200 to 300 protesters gathered on the campus Commons, according to published accounts. An estimated 1,000 more gathered on a hill behind them. Most of them, though not all, were Kent State students. There was a short speech by someone. Some protesters carried flags. Published accounts describe the day as disorganized.

Repeated attempts by the National Guard to disperse the crowd failed, despite the use of tear gas and the specter of Guardsmen fully armed, with bayonets fixed, again according to published accounts.

The students, it was reported, occasionally threw rocks.

They sang protest songs.

The Guard, regrouped on a hill.

Then some of them turned and fired. Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, was shot through the mouth from 265 feet away. He was killed instantly. His is the body in the news photo the eventually won a Pulitzer Prize. Mary Ann Vecchio, 14, was photographed kneeling over him, screaming. Allison Beth Krause, 19, suffered a fatal chest wound. She was shot from 343 feet away. William Knox Schroeder, 19, suffered a fatal chest wound. He was shot from 382 feet away. He was a member of the campus ROTC battalion who was simply walking between classes. Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, was shot in the neck from 390 feet. Scheuer was not part of the protest. She was walking with one of her speech and hearing therapy students. According “Excerpts From Summary of F.B.I. Report on Kent State U. Disorders Last May,” published by The New York Times on October 31, 1970, the guardsmen gave no verbal warning to the protesters before opening fire.

United Press International quoted a witness: “Suddenly, they turned around, got on their knees, as if they were ordered to, they did it all together, aimed. And personally, I was standing there saying, they’re not going to shoot, they can’t do that. If they are going to shoot, it’s going to be blank.”

Nine other students were injured, one of them permanently paralyzed.

In response, musician Neil Young wrote “Ohio.”

“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’

“We’re finally on our own

“This summer I hear the drummin’

“Four dead in Ohio.”

I can still hear that anthem of my youth.

Jane Curtis is editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is an Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.