Photograph entered into evidence showing the crowd's reaction when the National Guard used tear gas to get them to disperse. (Kent May 4 Center) What it could take to cause another May 4 By Tom Robinette "To me as an observer, it was incomprehensible. I walked around on campus, and I assumed those guns weren't loaded. I was helping move students when they were trapped in the wrong dorm back to their dorms. I confronted one of the National Guardsmen, and he got down on his knee with his gun and bayonet and aimed at us. I didn't think it would be loaded. Then, when it occurred, I assumed they were shooting blanks. Then to see bodiesÉit was a tremendous shock." -- Kenneth Calkins Kent State has had 30 years to inquire, learn, and reflect. But Kenneth Calkins, May 4, 1970, faculty marshal and emeritus professor of history at Kent State, acknowledges that lessons can be forgotten as easily as they were learned, and a similar tragedy could occur. Calkins was one of the marshals on May 4 trying to keep students safe, but his memory is burned by the images of violence he witnessed, and that is why he remains wary of another incident occurring. "It's sort of hard to imagine today's issues leading directly to a confrontation like that," Calkins says. "It would be foolhardy to claim that it would never happen again." Like Calkins, Jerry M. Lewis, emeritus professor of sociology, was a faculty marshal on May 4. He says at the time the faculty marshals consisted of tenure-track faculty and senior graduate students who were concerned about students at demonstrations being hurt. The group of marshals was formed by the administration in 1968 in response to other student protests. Their purpose was to be a voice of reason, talking students down from heights of anger. "What really drove the marshals is why the students are out there in the first place more so than the administration," Lewis says. "Initially, the administration, as we all were, was clearly trying to make sense of the demonstrations. Faculty are not trained to be marshals. We're trained to sit in libraries and read books." Despite their lack of training and organization, the marshals did everything in their power to prevent prevent violence. "We were out on May 4 sort of on our own," Lewis says. "We weren't organized. There were about four of us who were out there on May 4. I think what we did on May 4 was save lives." Lewis attributes a decline in campus activism today to the lack of a unifying issue. "There's no natural issue," Lewis says. "First of all, it's sort of a logical thing. There's no war so people don't have to worry about being drafted.