IIRC, the unit had also just been through extensive combat training and was supposed to be shipping out to 'Nam in the near future.
Yeah, so they’d just been pulled of days of riot duty. These guys were probably exhausted, on edge, armed, and put in a situation where for all they knew they may or may not have had their lives, or the lives of the community, at risk.
I’m not a military man, but to me, it doesn’t seem so surprising that one of the guardsmen misheard an order, got hit by a rock, or just panicked, and that the other guardsmen just started shooting when they heard the shooting.
A little research tells me that less than half of the guardsmen opened fire, they fired about sixty rounds, and only managed to hit 13 people in an open area. Doesn’t exactly seem like a cunning operation to put down the longhairs. Just a dumb accident, brought on, like any number of other tradgedys, by the concurrance of a bunch of different elements at just the wrong time.
Ranchoth
It seems you think I was blaming the Guard. See my posting #28.
My remark was directed at Governor Rhodes and not the Guard.