Nancy Brendlinger, Oral History

Transcribed by Rhonda Rinehart

My name is Dr. Nancy Brendlinger. I'm 35 years old, and I'm currently a professor of political science here at Kent State University. On May 4, 1970, I was in high school. And I can remember coming home, and my mother with a stricken look on her face, telling me that four students had been shot and killed at Kent State. The reason it affected me so much, is by May of 1970, my mother had buried her two sons -- my two brothers -- they had both been killed in Vietnam. My brother Dave, on the 29th of January, 1970 -- excuse me, 1968, during the Tet Offensive. He won the Medal of Honor. My brother Bob was killed on July 29th, 1969 -- the one and only time in the entire war that Cameron Bay was ever hit. My brother was killed visiting men in the hospital; soldiers of his who had been wounded on patrol. And my fiance was then in Vietnam. In October of 1969, my fiance Jamie and I had come to Kent State for a day, and sort of wandered around. My aunt lived in Northfield, Ohio at the time, and we just came and wandered around the campus. We watched them building the Student Center. We sat on Blanket Hill. And I told Jamie that when I went to college, that's where I wanted to go. And he said he didn't think it was really going to be possible because there didn't happen to be a Marine base anywhere nearby. My fiance was an officer in the Marine Corp. In February of 1970, Jamie went back to Vietnam on his six-month rotation, and he was in the jungle the whole time. He came out in August, and I met him in Hawaii for R and R. In August of 1970, I went armed with the front page of the New York Times, the front page of the Los Angeles Times, and the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And Jamie on his way from Vietnam would read a briefing packet -- a packet that would tell him all of the news that had occurred in the six months that he was in the jungle. And when we got to Hawaii, I asked him, "What did you think about Kent State?" And Jamie looked at me and said, "I thought it was a nice place." And I said, "What do you think about what happened at Kent State?" And he looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and said, "What happened at Kent State?" And I said, "You mean you don't know?" And he said, What happened when we were at Kent State?" And I handed him the front page of the New York Times and told him that National Guard and shot and killed four students. And he looked like he had been hit in the face with a two-by-four. It sent him reeling. He was very agitated. And he asked me, "What started the demonstrations at Kent State?" And I said, "Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia." And he looked at me and said, "What invasion? I've been in Cambodia for a year." And I told him as much as anybody knew in August of 1970, which was not very much. But he went through his briefing packet, and when the date -- when the month of May came up, there was no event for May 4th. So he called the briefing officer in Saigon, who prepared the packets for these men coming out of the jungle on Jamie's project, and his briefing officer said, "We didn't put it in there because we didn't think it was important." Jamie was very agitated after that. This was a man who was very much aware of what was going on around him, but not in touch with it -- a career soldier. All he wanted to do was be a Marine, and a good Marine.

We left Hawaii and came to Kent State the week before classes started in the Fall of 1970. We walked Blanket Hill again, and the Prentice Hall parking lot. And the emotion and the agitation that Jamie felt when he kept asking the question that we all ask, "How could they do this? How could the National Guard do this? How could anyone order these men to fire on these students?"

I buried Jamie one year, six months and eighteen days after Kent State. He was killed on the 22nd of November, 1971 in Vietnam. The war changed my life. I wish I had had the guts to get out and protest the war, but I didn't have the guts to do it at the time because I felt with my brothers and husband as career officers, that I couldn't get out and do things like that. So my form of protesting was working with the wives and families of MIAs and POWs. And I met a young man -- no excuse me, a middle-aged man by the name of Abbie Hoffman -- when he was going by the name of Berry Freed, and Abbie and I became very good friends. My biggest regret in my life is that I didn't get out there and stand up for what I believed in.

Today they dedicated the Memorial, which I do not think is enough. And today I heard George McGovern say that the biggest mistake he ever made was voting 'yes' for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I admire Senator McGovern for saying that, and for admitting his mistake, because he tried to rectify it later on. Today, when I teach my international relations classes and my foreign policy classes and my American government classes, I look out at these young men in my classes and I think that my country has taken everything away from me that they can take; I have nothing left to give. But it's these young men that would fight and die in the next war, and I try to get my student to think. I try to get them to see that there is a fine line between patriotism and following blindly. And that before they take a step or before they form an opinion or make a judgment or take a stand, that they should -- they have to know all of the options. There is always more than just one option. There always is.

I feel a great oneship with the spirit of Jeffrey Miller. I knew a young man very much like him. And my husband Jamie reminds me much of Bill Schroeder -- idealistic, bright, energetic. I feel pain when I think of Kent State and the shootings here. I think of -- when I think of the war, I feel pain. And I want to try to educate my students so that they don't have to live with the pain, and feel the pain that I do. I believe that we must teach about Kent State. We must keep the memory alive, because I am a firm believer that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, and God I don't want this to happen ever again. To Allison, to Jeffrey to Sandy and to Bill -- I wish I had known you, and oh, how I wish none of this had ever happened. And what I wouldn't give to be able to change what's happened. But I can't. All I can do is work to keep the memory alive, and to keep educating and teaching people about this. And maybe in some small part I can keep it from happening again.

×