Randy Gardner , Oral History

Recorded: May 5, 2011
Interviewed by Stephen Paschen
Transcribed by Stephanie Tulley

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: This is Stephen Paschen speaking on May fifth, 2011 at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives as part of the May 4 Oral History Project and I will be talking with Randy Gardner today who was here for the commemoration yesterday. I'd like to begin with a few biographical questions. If you could tell me a little bit about when and where you were born.

[Randy Gardner]: Okay. Columbus, Ohio. Actually, a suburb east of Columbus called Whitehall; April 18, 1950. Pretty much there until I was eighteen, nineteen years old and came up to Kent.

[Interviewer]: What kind of life, would you say, as you were growing up did you have?

[Randy Gardner]: A good one. I felt like I had everything I needed. The elementary school was just within a walk. Same with the junior high school, and then going to high school. It was a great time. It was interesting. Of course, in 1964 the Beatles came out and all that music resonated. Then I got involved with playing basketball, which I loved to do, and played varsity basketball. I wasn't a--I was probably a C student. I didn't really give any effort to it, you know. I didn't have a whole lot of guidance in that way.

[Interviewer]: How did you decide to go to Kent State?

[Randy Gardner]: Well, I knew I didn't really want to just go across town to Ohio State. I had a little bit of rebelliousness in me and I knew I wanted to make the break from the family. Kent was one hundred-sixty, one hundred-seventy miles up the road and I thought, That sounds good. So we checked it out, my mom and I, and then came up here on a date, saw a concert, and I thought, Yeah, this is big time, more adult-like. It was good.

[Interviewer]: When you came here, did you know what you wanted to major in? What year was this, by the way?

[Randy Gardner]: It was 1969. I thought I would major in education. Thought about being a teacher. But I was also very interested in mental health, so I took psychology and political science and these courses early on. That was what interested me.

[Interviewer]: Did you live in the dorms?

[Randy Gardner]: I did. I lived in Manchester Hall with two other guys that were here on scholarships or partial scholarships--I'm really not clear, can't really remember that. But there were three of us to a dorm, a bunk and then another bed across the room. Very small rooms, but it was great.

[Interviewer]: These were football players.

[Randy Gardner]: They were football players--big players--so I got the top bunk. It was a wonderful time because you would go down to eat and you'd have these big roundtable discussions and things like that. And like I said, I wasn't that great of a student in high school so I had to learn how to study and go to the old library. I'd book it there. I thought, Wow, I gotta really put effort into this. I remember the first time I had a political science test and the questions were longer than some of the books I read, you know, so I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm really gonna have to book it here and keep up with the reading. And I was able to do it, but I remember that first test, coming out of it thinking, Wow, that's the hardest thing I ever saw. I thought I'd be lucky to pass it. But then I found out they graded on a curve and I got a C on it, but to me that was an accomplishment because I didn't fail. Before finding out I got a C, I can remember calling my folks and saying, "I don't know if I'll be able to do this. This is really beyond anything I've ever done before." But then I did start to understand a little bit of how to do it and I caught on to it and it was fun, you know. It was the first time I really, kind of [was] looking at life a little more seriously.

[Interviewer]: What was going on on campus in those days? What was the atmosphere?

[Randy Gardner]: It was exciting. You had--I remember one of the first weekends I woke up and I heard a bullhorn down there and somebody was saying, you know, "People are dying, and you're sleeping?" And it was the early morning. "Get involved. We're having a march right now." Or something to that effect. And I thought, Wow, how unique is this? So I got my clothes on, went downstairs and I participated. I just listened and saw what was going on, you know. The atmosphere was such that there were always somebody making conversation about society, you know, what's going on, questioning institutions. It was a very electric time in that way, and I enjoyed it. And I met so many people that I thought, Wow, I wish I were that smart--that were from, maybe New York, or something like this. You could just see that they had had a little bit more variety in their education or the people they had been around.

[Interviewer]: Can you recall what your views were when you first arrived about Civil Rights and the war and things like that?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah. They were developing in my last couple years of high school. I was always good at reading the paper and staying in with the times. I had had a couple good sociology--or social science, I can't remember what they called them in high school--and history [classes] that tend to make things relevant and that caught on with me. My folks, they did--they discussed things. We discussed politics at the table. I can remember when--even at an early age, like 1962--when Kennedy was making an announcement of what he was going to do: put the blockage on Cuba. I remember my brother and I kind of fooling around a little bit and he--"Hey! Quiet down. The president's gonna talk." And it made me--I could see the seriousness of the situation. And then he took us out to the airport and we could see all the B52s and 47s and we could feel this escalation and even at twelve years old, you kind of--all of a sudden you're seeing that this is a little more serious than you know. I wasn't scared. Because I thought, Well what can you do? I mean, get under the desk? I didn't know the severity of it. I didn't know the craziness of the Cold War, but I could see how people were being affected.

[Interviewer]: In that first year that you were at Kent State, do you think that your views were altered by the experiences you had?

[Randy Gardner]: My first year altered? I think they kind of flowed into each other. I think I was accepting of that because I felt like, you know, my folks were probably kind of lower middle class. They could afford to send me, but barely. So I was appreciative of that, and I worked. But I was also appreciative of the fact that some guys were a little below us--poor--and I could see the unfairness of that. That they were going to have to put their lives in danger. Go to a war that I had already determined: I don't understand this, this isn't making sense. And I was against it. And as I came to Kent, and finding out more and more about the war--investigating it and reading more about it--then it hardened my beliefs even further.

[Interviewer]: Do you recall the first draft lottery? Do you have any thoughts about how you felt back then?

[Randy Gardner]: I do, yeah. Yeah, I think my number was like ninety-six or something like that. So I could almost feel, you know, the doctor asking me to cough if I wasn't in school. And I thought, "Okay, so I stay in school." That's my safety to prevent myself from going to war. And, of course, like I said, I really didn't feel I had an enemy in South Viet--or North Vietnam. Or even South Vietnam with the Vietcong. So, it was sobering to know, Okay, well, get in line.

And you have to remember too, we didn't have the right to vote. We had the right to carry a rifle. We didn't have the right to vote.

[Interviewer]: So you get through that fall and then the next spring things begin to change. Can you describe for me, as best you can, the day--what you can remember of the days--beginning with April thirtieth when Nixon made his speech, and just take me through May four[th]?

[Randy Gardner]: Okay. Yeah that was very disappointing to hear that we were going--and it wasn't like I was a big fan of Nixon's to begin with. I thought there was a lot of procrastination. Going slow here, getting out of Vietnam. And I wasn't thinking, Oh yeah, he's really getting us out here. I didn't see that effort being made. Some people said they did; I didn't. But when he escalated it to that point of expanding it to Cambodia, that was an outrage. And I felt like we really had to hold him to his, quote, secret plan to get us out of Vietnam. Well, escalating to get out, it just didn't make sense. So, yeah, I was upset. I went to that rally that day, and listened to different speakers.

And then I went downtown that night. I was in--it was just a whole lot of people downtown. And I remember--I wasn't the type to instigate things. I was more on the periphery of it. But I was involved, you know. I don't think I ever broke anything--threw things through a window or anything. Some people that I was with did. And I'm not critical of them for doing it. I felt, and I still feel, that a lot of times sometimes things have to happen in order for attention. To make the authorities aware, make the media aware. But I do remember being in the street, and I do remember people building fires in the streets, and more or less taking over the streets. And it was like the authorities were gone. And it was allowed to happen in a way. I mean, not allowed to happen, but it was like they were kind of caught off guard and the streets belonged to the kind of youthful--to the people at this point. And people were in there slogan talking, and I mean just talking amongst themselves about the war and things like this. It wasn't just, Oh, let's tear up the town. There was some political thought going on. But, there are people that did get bent on doing some damage. And I remember then they--the police did organize and drove the students back up the hill, back to the campus. And people--then I remember on Saturday being involved in the demonstrations there, and then eventually going down to The Commons and seeing the building set on fire.

[Interviewer]: You were there?

[Randy Gardner]: I was there, yeah. There were a lot of people--a lot of people just milling around. Talking and demonstrating. So people would be talking--you know, you'd hear somebody talking in this group, or something like that. But then eventually there was people throwing things, breaking windows, and then trying to set it on fire. And I can't remember the sequence of all--like they said, it was set on fire, then it was put out. There was all these kind of little conspiracy theories around it all. I wasn't paying that much attention to it all until--but I certainly did once it was inflamed, you know, it was going. I remember my English teacher was there, we were talking with her. She was very concerned that we were going to get in trouble here. That things were not going to turn out good. I think we stayed there, and eventually the firemen came. I remember they tried to put it out, and then the students grabbed the hose. The hose seemed like it was a thousand feet long, and they just dragged it out. And then they came back later.

I think from there that people started coming more toward the Administration building after--once they allowed the firemen to come and really kind of hose it down or something. I can't remember the exact sequence of how we got back to the front of campus. And we were at the top of the hill there, you know where the Administration buildings were and everything. And I can remember looking down the road and seeing two lights. It was real quiet. The thing said Kent had gotten quiet because people were boarding--you know, shutting their doors and thinking, What's going on?

But it was very quiet and I remember seeing these two lights coming from Ravenna. And they just kept getting closer. And all of a sudden, all these students were running down the hill. It sounded like Indians--you know what I mean? Just making noise, (imitates noise) and all this stuff. And here comes the National Guard. And people were coming down, running down this hill, down to the front of--I believe its Main Street there. And kind of greeting them, you know, Yeah! Yelling and screaming and everything. And they just blew right on by. But it was long, it was like never-ending. And seeing tanks, and armored carriers, and things like this. So there was a greeting of hostility in a way, like, We don't like what we're seeing here.  I remember them blowing by, but then I think--I can't remember if they drove us back or not that night. I don't think so. I think eventually the police maybe came and dispersed and sent us back to our dorms, and things like that. People broke off in splinter groups and talked. You know, stuff like that.

And that would be the Saturday. And then going into Sunday, then there was the presence of the Guard all over the campus. You saw them everywhere, and they were circled around the ROTC building. And it seemed more friendly. I didn't see people being hostile personally to the Guard, or anything like that. It was like people were talking with them and just walking around. Just kind of surveying what was going on on the campus. But then there was--it got distributed that there was going to be a demonstration that night too--to confront this presence of the Guard on the campus. And I went to that too. And I ended up in the street--sitting in the front street of Lincoln and Main. And I remember that was kind of a tense situation there, that they had all these tanks. Maybe they were armored carriers--I don't know, it seemed like tanks to me right then. They were big, they were all around us there, you know, on the corner and everything. And the demonstration ended right there by the old library at Lincoln and Main. That's where everybody was sitting and chanting, and doing all this, and the police were in front, kind of surrounded us there. And two--couple helicopters overhead kept circling. It had a feeling of kind of like, What's going to happen here? But we felt a little strength. The students I think felt strength in just being together in our number, you know. I don't think we felt like we were going to be hurt. But there was a different edge that night.

And then I think that somehow they got--there was going to be somebody that was going supposed to come out and talk and they didn't. And then they moved in on us. And I can't remember if teargas was used or what, but I had heard that some people got injured--bayoneted that night and things. But there were--it did get a little fearful. And we moved back onto the campus. And people were moving in different groups, and you had different Guard units pushing the students back. I think I ended up in Tri-Towers for a while, or something like that, before I eventually made it back to--I was staying at Heer Hall then. I stayed the first two quarters at Manchester and moved to Heer. It was a little roomier. And I had met another fellow by the name of Phil Hass--I don't know if I'm supposed to use names or not--and he became a close friend, and we decided to get together.

Nice little side story to that. Do you want it?

[Interviewer]: Sure.

[Randy Gardner]: I met him in English class. A 101 kind of English class, second quarter English class. The teacher was an interesting woman. And she paired us off--and Allison Krause was in this class too. And I think Barry Levine was too. She asked us--paired us off with people you perhaps didn't know--and do something with this person you've never done before and jointly write a paper. So it was like, you know, I never heard of something like that before. So we got together and I didn't know this guy, and I looked over who she paired me off with, and it was this fellow Phil. And he became one of the closest friends I ever had. And he had a pair of American flag pants on, so that was quite striking. But I digress.

But anyway, Sunday night ended by just getting back to the dorms safely. But then hearing later that there had been some people injured in altercations down there on Lincoln and Main. And I understand there's at least a few validating cases of that actually happening.

So then May fourth. It was kind of circulated that, Yeah, you can't--you're not martial law--all this kind of stuff. Rumors of that kind of stuff. That was just--I don't think that existed really. It was enough to tell, Don't do that. Yeah we'll do it. So that's what happened. The students all went down to The Commons. And we were listening to some speakers or something. We were all congregating there. And then they told us it was unlawful and they started throwing off tear gas.

And I think I went--I can't remember exactly which way I went around Taylor Hall. I think I probably went around through the Prentice parking lot, up that way--that direction. And I remember observing the scene there and being near the parking lot--in the parking lot. Watching some kids lob rocks to the Guard. But it was such a long distance, no one was hitting anything. It was just more of kind of a futile gesture of sorts. And then I saw the Guards--they were all kneeling with their guns aimed at us, moving them occasionally. Following certain people with almost like--you know, just slightly. But you could take kind of--it was an intimidation.

[Interviewer]: This was when they were on the practice field?

[Randy Gardner]: This was on the practice field. That they were just kind of fixing their sights on somebody, or something like that. Because it was aggressive. It was intimidation. It was pointing your gun at these people. And people were giving them gestures and stuff. But like I said, they were pretty far away. I would say they were seventy-five yards at least, or more.

But anyway, they were there and they stayed there for fifteen or so minutes I think. I'm not sure on time. But then they started to march up toward Taylor Hall. And my feeling was, They're probably going to go back down around the burned ROTC building where there were more troops and everything, to join them. I figured, Why would these guys want to be isolated like this down here? I could see for their safety that they probably wanted to just get back to where they were, and I guess on time, because that seemed to be the central location of the Guard. And as they proceeded up the hill, some of us students kind of flanked around them, and were coming--following them, from a distance.

At this point, I saw no rock throwing. I didn't see anybody getting hurt or anything like that. And there was still quite a distance between. There were a few stragglers that maybe were closer to the Guard, but not much. Just three or four people, or something like that. But most of the people were keeping their distance. They got to the top of that rise, and they just kind of in unison turned around and just started shooting.

And it was just--it was like you never gave thought to what's in their guns. Did they really have bullets? We didn't know. I don't think we gave it that much thought. I don't know why we didn't. But it was like disbelief that they were shooting--the shock, everything, you know. But when somebody's pointing a rifle at you and shooting, it's no time to ask questions. So we just--everybody took off scrambling. You just try to find safety. That's what you're looking for.

[Interviewer]: Would you say that you were off to their right as they were firing?

[Randy Gardner]: I was. From their prospective, I would have been from the right. I was probably closer to Jeff Miller--Jeffrey Miller. I think I might have even been a little right of him. At least that's been my perception. Because I took off across the practice football field, and I could hear a couple bullets hitting the ground--or hitting something. And somebody was laying out there as I was running across there, and I remember somebody saying, "Hit the dirt!" Screaming that. And I thought, Yeah, okay. And I just did that. I just laid down, covered my head, and I think that my feet were toward them at that point. But I was at some distance away. And I thought, Wow, I've covered some ground here, and I'm still hearing the shooting. So it went on for some time. I mean, thirteen seconds. I could run a hundred [meters] in thirteen seconds. I could do that at that age, I was fit enough. And so I know I laid down and there were still like three seconds or so left there. Maybe even more.

And then I got up afterwards and I walked back to the scene. And one of the first things I saw was Jeff Miller, and that was quite a gruesome scene to see. And I just kind of mingled with people, and I could see people. By the time I got back, people were tending to people. I didn't know that much on how to help anybody at that time anyhow. But people looked like, maybe a little older, that were there doing stuff, helping care for people. I mean it was pretty much pandemonium and everything. And I was also trying to find my friend Phil and Mike and another person. Everybody was scattered, so it took us a while to get together. And we just kind of mingled around there in shock and everything for a little while, and then we regathered on the other side of Taylor Hall on The Commons again. And we sat there and people were really angry, and shocked, and upset. But people were gathering, getting closer together, and being a group again. And then there was, you could see people were all--even prior to that, before they dispersed us, before we went to see the Guard over the practice football field--to me there were so many bystanders that had come out from different areas around the buildings and everything. There were the demonstrators, but there were also hundreds of people that were just looking, What's going to happen? What is this showdown happening here?

And then getting back to after the shooting, and sitting on the hill. I remember that Glenn Frank, I think was his name--he was a biology teacher--not a biology teacher, a geology teacher. Remarkable teacher. He pleaded with us to leave. And I can remember him saying that, and I've read it since, so you know it's not just a memory--it's not a kind of a false memory. I remember him saying that, "There could be more bloodshed, and if you've never listened to anybody before listen to me now." And people listened. And we dispersed. And we slowly walked up the hill. Some people didn't, I mean some people were still angry and just full of rage and everything, and you know, rightfully so for the massacre we had just witnessed.

[Interviewer]: Do you recall how you felt?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah, I was stunned. I was stunned. I remember I was angry. And I was kind of closed in to myself, I think. I got back with my friend Phil. And it's funny, I can't remember what we talked about, or what we said. The only part that it's kind of a blank from Dr. Frank getting us up, and moving away from that. And I remember walking down past Manchester Hall, and Beall Hall and everything, and going back to Heer Hall, and just being kind of quiet within my own thoughts. And I remember my friend Phil singing The Doors song, "Tell all the people that you see, that they're not free." Which I really didn't know the lyrics to but I thought, That's right. That's the lyric. But the real lyric is, "Tell all the people that you see, that we'll be free." And then there's another about a gun in it somewhere. But what I remember what Phil saying was, “Tell all the people--" just kind of mumbling singing this song, going south. That's funny, that just, that's what I just remember. And then I remember us getting to the dorm, and they evacuated the campus shortly thereafter.

[Interviewer]: Did you know while you were still at the scene who was shot, or was killed? Those sorts of things?

[Randy Gardner]: No. Just Jeff--Jeff Miller. And I really didn't know him. I mean, you see people at these demonstrations that you would get to recognizing. You would just give them a head nod or a smile, or something because you were all kind of in it together. And some people that you would see, maybe you even saw at demonstrations in Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Washington D.C., because we did that. If we had a weekend where we could give voice to protesting the war, we sometimes would become that nasty person: the outside agitator.  But I don't see how you're an outside agitator in your same country. 

[Interviewer]: Well tell me what happened in the aftermath. I mean, you had to evacuate campus, but what were your experiences in the days and the weeks after this happened?

[Randy Gardner]: I went to Oberlin for a while, they opened their school for a while. I went up there for a week and a half, two weeks, and took part in--you know I can't even remember where I slept, what I did. That is so strange, our memories. But I do remember going to class--classes and talks. They were quite nice up there to us.

[Interviewer]: Was this completing your quarter at Kent?

[Randy Gardner]: Some of it might have been. But a lot of it was correspondence. You ended up doing correspondence work. They fill out--you write up a paper and a blue book, you know one of the blue notebooks that you used for writing something. There were ways to complete your coursework. They would mail that to you. And I don't know if I did some of it at Oberlin, or I did it from my--eventually going home. I remember I eventually went home. But I didn't stay home too long. But I did stay home long enough--I remember going up to Ohio State and using their library. And then fulfilling what I had to do to complete the coursework. And then they graded it, and they told you what you did. I actually did really well that quarter. I think the professors were being real liberal with their grades on that one for me. Although maybe I had put out a little more effort too, I don't know.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember if you talked to your--when you talked to your family after this happened?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah. Yeah, I got a hold of them. I told them I was alright, and they were in disbelief that something like this had happened. And there was an incident later--and I can't tell you what week it happened afterwards, but it was shortly thereafter, within the first three or four weeks--of Mike, my roommate, had come down, and the FBI showed up at the door, and they wanted to talk to us, and we didn't really want to talk to them. We weren't at the point of--we weren't there yet with wanting to really cooperate unless we had a subpoena or they had some legal right to do it. We weren't--we just felt like the government had really betrayed us here. We were downstairs when my father said, "Well, you know, not going to happen. You don't have the paperwork." And you know, so we didn't.

And I think, like I said, I finished the coursework, got my grades, and then I think I went up to Buffalo, New York and worked for my roommate's father that summer. I think we were all kind of still stunned by it all. And it was good to get work--working, doing something. Kind of get away from it, get away from school, and the idea of what we'd been through.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember any interaction with people over that period? That--

[Randy Gardner]: Arguments, and things like that? Right, yeah.

[Interviewer]: Or otherwise people who support?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah. Yeah, you would run into, especially older people. I mean it was a divided country. And people had their beliefs that, These dirty hippies. They don't care about the country. A lot of them relieved at all this kind of stuff. We thought, How about make it better and change it? So, that was our purpose.

So yeah, you'd run into that every once in a while. And I remember being at a house party once, where it was not for young people, but it was for celebrating some grandmother, and it was at a nice house. Nicer house than I've ever been in--catered too. I later heard that this cost like four or five thousand dollars. And at that time, that's a lot of money for a big party. And it was all lawyers and doctors and everything. And I don't know how we got there, but it was Buffalo. And we had some heated conversations with some of the guests about where the country was going, about Kent State, about the war. And yet, this group was a little more liberal than most groups. There were probably fifty or sixty people. I remember just being so impressed that they had this thing catered to. I had never seen that kind of lifestyle before. It was just very strange. But we ended up arguing with some people, and some pretty heated arguments about politics and stuff and it was interesting. But we were young, we were up for it. People felt--some of these guys felt like we weren't respecting World War II enough. And reflecting back, we might not have been. Which is, I wish I had been a little brighter and showed that respect for them a little bit more, because I just didn't know.

[Interviewer]: So did you come back to Kent in the fall?

[Randy Gardner]: I did, I did. Yeah, I came back--same room, roommates. And it was different. It was different. I did better, actually, in studies. I kind of learned a little bit how to study. But also figured out what professors wanted, and how to take a test. That's kind of what it ended up being for me. And then you learn--I actually was able to cut down my study time because I figured out how to focus on certain areas. So that allowed me more time to study the war and be involved in anything that was trying to bring some justice to the May fourth incident. Looking back, that was a little counterproductive in a way, because it just seemed like things weren't going anywhere. My frustration level was getting more and more, and I probably did a little more weed than I had done before. Just because it was--not that I was using it as an escape, but maybe to a certain degree, a little of that. Just because I had to get away from some of that. But it wasn't abusive in the way I did it. But, you know, we did it.

[Interviewer]: So what were those years like? Were you here until graduation then?

[Randy Gardner]: No I wasn't. I got very frustrated with the year there. One of my roommates got arrested for flag desecration during one of the demonstrations. And I just got more and more angry at the University. It just didn't seem like things were going to go well. We were going to do--I was getting more impatient. And I thought, I can't continue this. I finished the year, and I thought, You know, I'm tired of this. I've got to do something different. So I ended up hitchhiking out West. Out to Colorado, and then Seattle, and San Diego up in the Banff Jasper, Canada with two girls. And I can remember going through Columbus from Kent, and telling my dad my plans and him saying, "That's not a good idea." 

So I said, “Yeah, but this is what I'm going to do.” I don't know, that's probably narcissistic and just feeling like I was entitled to do something because of what I'd been through or something. I don't know what was in my head. But I wanted to go out West. I wanted to shake it up. And I did.

[Interviewer]: Were you worried at all about what would happen with the draft at that point?

[Randy Gardner]: Slightly. It was kind of like I was up for that battle. And I thought, Okay, I'll deal with them. And I thought, I'll challenge them, and then I'll consider my options. And that's what I did. And that's what it--as it turned out, I did the trip. Went out for about six weeks, just on the road. Had a wonderful time. Saw the country. But I remember, as I said with my father telling me, "That's not a good idea." He also prefaced that with, "I'm not going to be here to support you if you're not working this summer." So that--to your question about what's going to happen with the draft--well, I realized, Okay, I'm not going to be going to school. I'm going to have to get a job and all that. So yeah, I was up to the challenge that I was going to have to take a different course.

And I did. I went up to New York--Buffalo--and got a job up there. And then I had to deal with the draft. The Quakers had an area of where they--you go in, you fine tune your beliefs. They help you come to terms with what is it you believe. Are you a concientious objector? And so I started to take that path--that I'm a conscientious objector. That I'm not going to Vietnam to kill anybody. I do not see that as preserving freedom for us here. That I just couldn't do that. So I was involved, going through this for a couple months--going to these meetings three or four times a week. And I was in the process--the board, the draft board wanted me to come down, and I was kind of putting them off to do that. And I was going to tell them, “This was what the direction I'm going to take with you.” And then I would have to--you have to study those and go over questions that are pretty difficult. Know exactly where you stand when you're talking to these guys because they were trying to figure out whether you're just trying to hose them or what. So I said, Okay, well I'll do that.

But in December, I believe, or January--sometime in there--Nixon put a stop to the lottery for about three months. And I can't remember what year, or when that happened, but then the next year came and they had a new lottery. Well, my number--they got kicked up. I was put in what they called an extra priority group, which put me at the end of this next lottery. So here comes freedom. I was safe. It was just luck. So at that point I didn't have to worry about it. So that was kind of, you know, felt good.

[Interviewer]: Well, connect the dots a little bit between that time and now.

[Randy Gardner]: Okay.

[Interviewer]: Where did you go? How did you spend that--

[Randy Gardner]: Well the lure of Kent was still there. I still had this feeling of Kent. Even though I--it was like a little bit of a love-hate thing. But still, there is something about the people of Kent that is just so great. There's just good people here. And then I came back, and I spent about a year. But I had already gone out West so I kind of knew, Alright, that's where I want to eventually be. So I came back here, got a job at a place called Hawthornden State Hospital which was a little south of Cleveland. And I worked there for about a year--it was just kind of freaks and hippies and blacks that worked up there in this old state hospital, cottage system. The ones that John F. Kennedy was trying to eventually phase out as dysfunctional--just housing people. But I got a job up there.

And then I would go to classes over here. But I did not want to register. I just, I was still angry. I didn't want to give them any money, I just wanted to just go listen to them. And I listened to Jerry Lewis, and people like that. Just go sit in classes, philosophy classes, things like that. It was fun. I mean, it was a good time. And I could do that whenever I wanted and no one was going to test me. And it wasn't like there was somebody--I don't know--I don't even know if you could do that today. Probably has electronics that you can't sit in here. But back in that day you could do that stuff. And it was nice. So in a way I was still getting some education here.

So I did--I worked there for a while. And then I eventually got married--too young: twenty-two. It didn't really work out. It was a difficult period. We were both young, it wasn't--it was just that way. But we moved out West. And then that broke up and everything. But I got a job at a state hospital south of Portland that was much different than the cottage hospital that I had worked at here. But it had an extreme amount of violence in it. It was just young--a lot of young crazies that had traveled the country. Some sociopaths, things like that. But that was an interesting job, it also had some really chronically mentally ill that it was just fascinating to work with. I stayed there for a few years, and then I moved to the University of Oregon--the Oregon Health Science Center--in Portland. And that was, like, totally different. It only had sixteen beds, and I worked there for a number of years as a therapist. And then I went to this other hospital--this big city hospital, Catholic hospital--and it was much like the University. It was an acute--where you just dealt with all types of people, from eating disorders to people the police brought in that were running down the street naked, whatever. It was psychotic, acute psychotic breaks, early schizophrenic breaks, depression, suicide, everything. And that was interesting.

And I had gotten fairly good at dealing with crisis management [unintelligible] early on, where the place where I described as being a little more violent and everything. So I had a reputation where I was able to get into the University of Oregon. Kind of grandfathered in, in some ways. And then it just kind of--like everybody always says, Well that's such interesting work. And it is. There's always some new stories to pique your interest and everything. It's like all work--it does get a little routine. And there's certain ways you go at things with people. Yes, everyone's individual, but you provide structure and that provides help.

So I did that until about 2005. I met Barbara at the University of Oregon, and we've been together about twenty-eight years or so. And she's a psychiatric nurse, so she had worked in crisis triage and other areas in community mental health and everything. So it was just the two of us, well, and her daughter early on. And then she went to college, and then it was just the two of us and we were saving money and everything. And we were able to kind of make a few investments, and we sold at the height of the bubble. She wanted--she had grown up in Portland. And I'd left Columbus, I knew what it was like to want to live in your hometown. But she liked Portland. But at the same time, Portland's very rainy, and she wanted to get out. So we went to Tucson, because she had another daughter there, and a grandson. And she wanted more sun, so--

[Interviewer]: So what year did you move to Tucson?

[Randy Gardner]: 2005, yeah. And I've been semi-retired down there. I've picked up a couple jobs--just from maybe three months, six months, something like that--something I want to do. And then one was in a department store, I've never done that. So I thought, Yeah, okay. I thought, Well, I'll do it for three months. I did it for six, because I was just working with all these young people, and they were a hoot. So it was fun. And then I didn't really have to, so I quit.

And I have a friend of mine that works in film as a producer. He said he knew I wasn't doing anything, so he said, "Come on back. It'll be like summer camp. You can work as a production assistant." I said, “Well, okay. I'll do that.” Well, he lied. It was fourteen, sixteen hour days, six days a week, for four or five months. But it was fun. So I just--I hung with him, we helped him make a movie called The Strangers--a scary movie with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, and it was interesting. Like I said, I had mental health work. So I'm dealing with people that are making movies, and there's a lot of mental health there. 

[Interviewer]: Well let's fast forward. Now it's January eighth, 2011.

[Randy Gardner]: Oh yeah.

[Interviewer]: Tell me what happened that day.

[Randy Gardner]: Well I had gotten a robocall the night before saying that Gabrielle Giffords, my congressman--congresswoman--from the district in Tucson, Arizona, was going to have what she called a Congress on the Corner--it was a like a meet and greet thing. So I thought about going. I wasn't sure I would, but the next morning Barbara--she went to a play about immigration at a Catholic church, which I'm forever grateful she did. And I thought, Well, okay I'll go over to this other post office, which was a couple miles longer away than the one I usually use, and I thought, Well if they're not too crowded I'll stop.

And I went over, got the mail, and I went over to the shopping center where they had a little tent outside of a Safeway store. Not a tent, but just one of those little canopies that extended the canopy of the building. And then had it set up with some chairs--twelve chairs sitting out this way, and then a line to get in to. But there weren't that many people, so I registered. As I was walking up I saw Congresswoman Giffords walking in, and we nodded at each other. She was smiling. It was a nice, pretty morning like Tucson has. And she goes over immediately because it was just about ten o'clock, and starts greeting people.

Well I get in line--I sat down first next to this older woman, and we start talking and then we stood up. And we just--she's telling me she's Republican. So that led into a conversation. I said, “Well why are you here?” And she had told me, well the guy that was running against Ms. Giffords in the previous election in November of 2010, he was kind of this teabagger. Kind of just a [Sarah] Palin-esque type talking head. Just clichés--empty suit. She couldn't go for him at all. She had talked with Ms. Giffords before and she just found her fascinating, and just a good moderate Democrat that she could vote for. So we were just discussing issues and everything. And I told her I had come to tell Congresswoman Giffords that I appreciated her vote on healthcare, and I wanted her to stand tall--or stand strong--against the efforts to repeal it. And I felt that people were being--that would be helped that hadn't gotten to receive help before.

So we're just standing there talking to each other, and we're engaged in a real conversation, eyeball to eyeball, just a foot and a half from each other. And it's a loose line and there's about three or four other people ahead of us and then there's a space of ten feet to the Congresswoman. And all of a sudden, I hear a pop, a pop pop, and then a pop pop pop pop pop pop. And the quiet of the morning had been broken.

My vision--I remember Phyllis saying, "What’s happening?" And I said, “We got to get out of here.” And I turned and I got shot in the foot. I turned back around and I couldn't see Phyllis, and I actually couldn't see anybody clearly. Everything was shades of gray and shadowy. And it's like, it sounds like firecrackers. You know it's not firecrackers. And it's rapid fire. And I know that if I focus, it may be the last thing I ever see, you know--that I'm just going to die. And I turned around, and I kind of put my head into my shoulders just to kind of make myself smaller. And I dragged my--I'm limping at this point. And I'm just kind of walking out. And I see people scrambling, and covering up, and lying on the ground. But again, everything's kind of shadowy, and I walk out. And I eventually--I see people diving behind cars and--they're parked in front of the Safeway store--and I get behind them, one of the cars. And I bend over and the shooting is still continuing.

And it's interesting: here we go again, that it's about thirteen seconds or so for him to unload thirty-one bullets. So, I did--at this point, when the shooting stops, I moved forward to the end of those cars and think, I'll go into the parking lot and then move. I don't know what I was thinking. Just get away. And a girl from the Walgreens store that was next door helped me into the Walgreens store. She said she saw the shooter leave the scene and reload, put another clip in his gun, and then head back into the scene. I could hear cries, and I could hear screaming and all of this kind of stuff. When he got back into the scene--and I didn't see any of this because I was still kind of just--that was when I was moving out away from the car. She said that--well, she didn't say, but that's when I learned that there were like a couple of guys that were able to jump him when he got back. And they were older guys, and they were able to get the--fortunately the clip didn't get into the gun right, and they got able to get the gun away from him. And they just, you know, were able to subdue him. And like I said, that was happening probably as I got into Walgreens.

I was fortunate I got taken out of the scene, in a way. I mean, because I know, after Kent, I knew how--what bullets did to bodies. So it was a horrendous scene. I mean, it was just walking out of that scene was--it was a maelstrom of--you felt you were cocooned in this anti-life environment of just bullets, and just this--the air changed. It was very, very surreal and not a good place to be.

[Interviewer]: When were you aware that your vision returned to normal?

[Randy Gardner]: As I was walking out of the scene, it was almost like color came back to me, and it was--things seemed brighter. As I saw visions of these people going behind cars and stuff, it was at that point that I felt like my vision was coming back. And it funneled down, tunneled in, and got gray. And I could see this figure jumping around in front of me, but I couldn't make him out. And at the same time, like I said earlier, I felt like my--I just needed to get away from the sound. I couldn't pinpoint where he was at, and then later learned that he was moving toward me. And he did. He moved to the area I was at and kept coming, because three people died in front of me and then three people died behind me. And he came further in the line where I had been and was still shooting people on the ground.

A friend who developed as a friend--another couple--he had tossed his wife down on the ground and covered her face with his arm and a bullet hit his arm. Saved her life. It would have gone right in her head. She just later told me that she was just--when they got up, when the scene--he even felt, as he laid on the ground, the shooter's foot hit his foot. He thought he was dead. He thought, That's it, I'm just going to die here.

This is an intelligent guy. He's a Stanford grad, and he's just a really nice guy. They were traumatized in a way that I wasn't because they stayed in that scene, and the guy next to him got his head blown up. She was sopping wet in blood. They took her--she went into Safeway and they got her something else to put on because she was just dripping in it. So it was a very ugly scene. I was afforded not--not the visions of all that because I got helped into the Walgreens store. Which I'm kind of grateful for because I'd seen that before here at Kent.

[Interviewer]: When the girl got you into Walgreens, what happened then?

[Randy Gardner]: I--you got in about twenty feet, it was getting difficult to walk, and I just laid down on the floor. But I remember even laying there, and I thought, Girls, we better close that door. I mean, this guy could come back. And they were very helpful. There were three girls there that were very helpful. And one girl went back out when the pharmacist went out to help. Fortunately, by then the scene was being cared for really well. We were fortunate there were some doctors on the scene, nurses on the scene. It's kind of--everything worked pretty well there. The emergencies, and the University of Arizona UMC did a good job.

[Interviewer]: Did you end up at the same hospital as other people?

[Randy Gardner]: I did, I did. They took me there and the doctor--the head of the trauma unit--came in and spoke briefly with me. All the doctors and nurses were real good to me and they, of course, did x-rays right away. They looked at my foot and they were able to determine that the bullet had gone in one side, like right below the heel, and then exited up here, and didn't hit any bone. So I was so fortunate in the fact that it went through and through, and I didn't require surgery.

So I spent the night--they released me the next day. I had a kind of a soft cast on--you know, hard on certain areas--and I kept that on for about four or five weeks in a shoe. And within about six to seven weeks I was able to bear weight. And it's healing up really good. It's a little stiff, and if I keep it in one position I can feel it. But for the most part, what started out as two penny-sized holes on each side got to a dime size, and now I just got kind of two dimples on each side of my foot. And I feel like I'm very fortunate. I'm--yeah, I'm just very fortunate. And I really don't like to--when I think of what, how other people suffered, what they've gone through, I don't even really want to talk about it too much because it's nothing. There is--

[Interviewer]: How did you feel? How did you feel after you--

[Randy Gardner]: Mentally. Yeah, working in mental health, I always thought I had a good grip on empathy for people that had gone through some very traumatic stuff. Whether it's incest, rape, or whatever, I always felt like I was very respectful in those areas, and empathetic. But now, I realize--it took me to a deeper level. It took that the PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] to it all is even more severe than I had even thought. It's a little uncontrollable. You wake up in the morning, or you go to bed at night--it's difficult. For me it was the quiet times that was most difficult. That you'd wake up and you'd just have this shudder. Or you're driving a car by yourself, and you just have this shudder feeling of, Oh, I went through that. I almost died. Why didn't I die? Why wasn't I able to help somebody? All those kind of thoughts. And it's different. It brought a new awareness to me about how people suffer, and I just think that we should do all we can in this country to try to eliminate some of this gun violence and the violence that just seems to fill America up. All the cities, everybody--it's just too much. We need to address it.

[Interviewer]:You mentioned that you have at least a couple of friends that were people who were there at the scene and shot.

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: Have you gathered with some of the people who were witnesses or people who were wounded?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah, a few times. Not--just kind of in different events. One of the fellas that was shot--one of her [Gifford's] top aides in Tucson put together a concert for civility, to lower the heat, the vitriol that's on television, on the radio and everything. And Jackson Browne, and Crosby and Nash and--so many other ones--the names escape me right now. It was a wonderful--it was the best I ever felt about Tucson, going to that concert. And there were a lot of other survivors there. And everybody seemed to be in the best space that I had seen them, because we had been at a couple--we went to the memorial, where the President spoke, and everybody was still pretty overwhelmed by it. But by the time we saw the concert, about a month later, I think it helped bring people's spirits up a little bit.

[Interviewer]: You met the President, didn't you?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah I did, yeah. Very--him and his wife--very, I would have to say at least appearing very genuine. Very relaxed, very comforting--both of them. Just special people. I was quite impressed by how generous he was with his time and his consoling. It was quite an honor to meet him. I mean, again, I feel--some guy walking across south Tucson today gets shot the same way I get shot: he doesn't get that treatment, and I'm quite aware of that. That's why I feel like I've got to do almost everything I can to try to eliminate some of this kind of violence, and working with [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg's group to fix gun checks, stuff like that. There's too much suffering.

[Interviewer]: Yesterday, I heard you speak at the commemoration and it was an emotional speech. And of course you're in a unique situation in that you were present for what happened on May 4, 1970 and then so many years later in January 2011. What are your reflections on being an eye witness to both of these historic incidents?

[Randy Gardner]: Boy, yeah. It's a good question. And it's one that I've thought of, because it's been asked of me, Well, what's that like? And you know what? It's bothered me for four decades. After Kent, I was really sensitized to it, that this is so needless, all this. I mean whether--that was the government coming down on us, but it was violence. It was gun violence. And it's killing. And for, like, the last forty years I've watched it. America just--it's what we do. So, in a way, I never really had to get shot to understand that we've got to be better than this. We've got to help each other out. We've got to have reasonable laws here to curtail some of this.

So that, I mean, that's an element of it for me. Why it happened to me? I don't know. I look at it and I think--well, I guess you could say, Well, I guess that's really bad luck, right there. But, you know, hey, I made it through both of them, so there's that other side of good luck. I don't know. I can't explain why that is. And for some reason in my mind, in knowing this country, it can happen again. I mean, there's so many guns, and people are so fragile--and sometimes that have these guns, that all it would be is another little--it might be an interesting article or, you know, this could make national news: Hey, that guy that got shot in Tucson and at Kent State? He got shot there. Do you believe that? Three times. I mean, it could happen. I mean, just because it happened twice doesn't mean that it can't happen a third time. It's like having a bad car accident, Oh good, now I'm good for another forty years. Life doesn't work that way. Anything can happen in life, and probably will, in some ways. I don't know. I don't have an answer for it. People ask me that and I wish I had a better answer.

[Interviewer]: Do things--when it comes to violence and guns and those sort of things, do things seem like they've gotten worse in those forty years?

[Randy Gardner]: Yes, I do. I think so. And I think we're at a strange time in America, where we have the right wing of the Republican party, or the right wing of the people--the Tea Party--whatever you want to call them--they're being unreasonable here--the NRA, and all this--with any legislation to try to help at curtailing some of this violence. I'm not naive in thinking that we'll ever get rid of guns from this country. We won't, there's too many of them. And in this country, it all boils down to people get guns because they're frightened. I'm sorry people are so frightened. But there's a lot--I think the majority of us live in an area where we don't have guns, and we're not frightened. We don't carry a gun on us all the time. And then there's a lot of people that are now feeling they got to carry a gun.

I think it comes back to bigotry. I think it comes back to not trusting the other tribes that you live with. That, Well it's those people. I don't trust them.  I mean, you hear, Well why doesn't Japan have this problem? Well, they're a homogeneous society. They trust each other. You leave something by the bus stop and it'll probably be there an hour from now. In this country, we don't trust each other. And there's that feeling that some people are getting preferential treatment, and it creates this resentment. And I think that's the basis of a lot of this anger, and a lot of this gun carrying and everything. And I don't see that getting better. Unfortunately, it's not. It's like people are becoming more polarized, and it doesn't speak well for the future. And I think we are in that period of time that may go on for about thirty or forty years before we have--before there is more of a blending of skin color in this country that will allow us to move forward because, I don't know, it's a strange period we're in.

[Interviewer]: Is there anything that we haven't talked about?

[Randy Gardner]: Yeah, I know, I really, really run on here.

[Interviewer]: That's fine. Is there anything more that you wanted to say and you don't think you got it said?

[Randy Gardner]: I guess I want to thank Kent State, the May 4th Task Force, Tom Grace, Alan Canfora, all the kids that participate in the Task Force. They keep the memory alive--that it's important that we always remember these kids that died here--that got killed here. And then we do. Truth will help all of of us in the end here.

[Interviewer]: Well, I want to thank you for taking the time today to talk to us. And I think your words will resonate into the future as people listen to and read this interview as part of the historical record. Thank you very much for doing it.

[Randy Gardner]: Well, I appreciate the opportunity.