Dennis G. Durand, Oral History

 

Recorded: April 30, 2020

Interviewed by Benjamin V. Allison

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

 

[Interviewer]: This is Ben Allison speaking on April 30, 2020, in Newton, New Jersey, doing an oral history interview over the telephone as part of the May 4 Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: My name is Dennis Durand.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. Mr. Durand, first of all, I just wanted to thank you for your participation in this project. It’s very important and we are looking forward to hearing your story. I would like to begin with some brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little better. [00:00:46] Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay. I was born in Garden City, Long Island in Nassau County in, let me see, on July 12, 1940. As the Second World War raged on, my father was in the Army Air Corps, we moved to Rochester, New York. I lived in Rochester until 1954, went to grade school there and then moved to Salem, Ohio, and attended Salem High School, among others. I never graduated from high school. I went to Saint Vincent’s Prep, and then I joined the Marine Corps. I joined the Marine Corps August 23, 1958. I did my duty, came out, did a couple of years at the extension school in Salem, and then moved up to the campus and became a student on the campus at Kent State.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, and when did you leave the military?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: When was I in the military? ’58 to ’62.  

 

[Interviewer]: Were you state-side the entire time?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: No. We went overseas, we, the “regal” we. Went over to Okinawa, got out of Fulton Battalion, went to Hong Kong, the Philippines, then we toured off the coast of Vietnam for sixty-two days. The colonel said that’s the longest he’d ever been at sea. Then, they were going to put us on a train from—it was kind of crazy, so we never into Vietnam, we were just offshore. Came back, went to California, and was discharged.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:03:20] All right. Thank you. And so, when did you first come to Kent State again? What year was that?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Well, that’s a loaded question. Let’s see, I had many jobs, I don’t remember. I was in the extension at Kent State I guess early on, maybe ‘63 and then nothing in ‘65 and then I took my hours and transferred up to the campus. When the heck was that? It might have been ‘68, I guess.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. [00:04:20] What brought you to Kent State?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Well, that’s an interesting question and let me amend that. I was there in ‘64 because then I got a job with Elite Russillo Construction. We built augured foundations and then I worked at Summit County Juvenile Court. I was working there for two, three years, so I must have been at Kent State earlier, maybe ‘65. Now, the question was why did I go to Kent State?

 

[Interviewer]: Yes sir.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, it was close. My brother was making a lot of money in television administration. He was selling time, and well, I don’t know, I guess I thought that being a professional man was better than working at the mill. I had had a lot of jobs and they weren’t panning out, so I thought I’d give that a try. Also, working at the Juvenile Court didn’t hurt, they had some money there. That was motivation to start out with. As it turned out, we got more serious academically as time went on.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:06:17] What was your major?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, Radio/TV Broadcasting. So, Communications, or Communication Arts, I guess, and I think they changed the major or changed the name, but that’s what it was then.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:06:50] How did you view the protests and the Vietnam War when you first arrived on campus?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Well, that’s a loaded question, really. How did I view it? I didn’t like the War, but our guys were over there and so, having been close to that myself, I say support them and let’s figure out what’s going on. But, oh, boy, how did I—? Yeah, I didn’t know how the biggest country in the world could be wrapped up in Vietnam and not win, not do something. My brother had been a fighter pilot, Marine Corps fighter pilot, over there and he told me that they’d have a mission and after the mission, they had to go and pay the French rubber manufacturers $85.00 for each tree. Profiteering, but the politics of the war is one thing when you’re here; it gets real simple when you’re there. You just try and stay alive.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:08:34] How did you view the protests as they started occurring?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Uninformed. They hollered at the wrong people. It still goes on today, especially today. The politicians are doing this crap. I looked at the service men as just service to the machine, if you will. You could put me down as a conservative right away. Kent State radicalized me for the rest of my life.

 

[Interviewer]: Could you talk about that a bit?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Well, yeah. We should go through what—I mean, you know, the cart’s before the horse. I had some maturing to do. I was a product of my own experiences, and so, living that life, I would say—what do I want to say? I want to say, coming up in the Fifties, life was pretty simple. It was nice, everything worked great, people were working, and it was a good life. Then the war came and we just kept feeding the machine. We just kept feeding the beast, and my opinions were changing and it’s tough to recall, fifty years later, exactly how I was thinking. Which [unintelligible]  [00:10:53.7] is how I’m thinking right now. And it—what do I say, it was out of control, much like Kent State was that weekend. Coincidentally, this is April 30^th, it’s the same day it was fifty years ago.

 

[Interviewer]: When you say, “it was out of control,” what do you mean by “it”?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, there was a disturbance on Kent State. When I got there, they used to have the freshmen dink, you know, “Dink, frosh.” With this little stupid beanie and I guess that’s a holdover from whatever time. I wasn’t interested in any of that, being a Marine veteran. But maybe that was it. The world had changed somewhat. Administratively, the university, I don’t know if [President] White was on campus or not, but these other guys, Vice President Roskens and the like, he was an academic. He could’ve provided more leadership and maybe even cooled the whole thing, but we couldn’t find a leader and then these guys get in there and Del Corso, the “cocktail general,” can you imagine a major general with no combat experience?

 

They all had an agenda. The governor running for re-election, “Get the troops there.” Troops, what the hell, they were on the highway trying to stall the Steel Hauler’s Strike. It just was a cacophony of actions that came together and lived a life of its own. Quite frankly, I called it a police riot. It wasn’t because whoever was in charge of the National Guard was the blunder. When I sat on the Committee for Commitment to Nonviolence, we found out that the [Ohio] Highway Patrol had a plan to control crowds, but they would not put their officers in jeopardy until they had enough reinforcements for the size of the population of the university. And so, as the Highway Patrol is gathering, here comes the National Guard! Well, I’m ahead of myself in the storytelling, but the cops wouldn’t have shot everybody!

 

[Interviewer]: And why do you think that is?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Well, they’re disciplined! Who the hell—live rounds? When the shooting was going on, there’s a picture of me. I’m on the west side of the line that opens fire. Now, I’m a veteran, I know how armor works, and when I heard the pop, pop, pop, I looked and I said, “What in the hell? How are they doing that?” Because they didn’t have any blank adapters on the end of their weapons. Well, guess what fans? There’s only one way that they can make that work, and that’s to shoot live rounds. That’s when I got the hell out of there!

 

[Interviewer]: [00:15:32] If we could back up just a little bit, how would you describe the general mood or prevailing attitudes amongst students in the spring of 1970 leading up to the events of May 4^th and that whole weekend?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay. It’s Friday, Kent State is a suitcase college. So, a lot of people go home, lots. Somebody was ringing the bell there on Blanket Hill and, okay, you stop to find out what was going on. And here, Nixon had invaded Cambodia and buried the Constitution. Okay, well, it was interesting news. He had invaded Cambodia, and let’s go downtown.

 

So, it also happens to be the night of the NBA Finals. Whoever is left on campus, and is so motivated, goes downtown, plenty of bars down there. So, WEWS [TV Station] had a film crew down there, and somebody started a fire in a garbage can. I don’t know the name of the street, but it was north and west of the campus, by one of the bars. They rushed in and showed the people, oh my goodness, this is a disturbance at Kent State, so there was six or ten people there, so what? Anyhow, NBA Finals are going on and I don’t remember what bar I was in up on the hill, I’ve forgotten the name, “The Deck” or “The Coals” but around midnight, I guess, all of a sudden, the lights come on. Here’s this potbellied sheriff with a shotgun, “Outside, everybody out.” What the hell are you talking about? Well, anyhow, so you’re oiled up with a few beers. The girl that you had your eye on has vanished and now, “Outside, outside!” Everybody goes out, and here comes—they have emptied all the bars, a light rain is falling, all the students are congested downtown where the main square, if you will. What’s going on? So, somebody broke a window. I guess they were pissed off with what was going on. All right, now they march the students back to the university. They get to the university, all the students go on the campus, and all of a sudden, that’s holy ground because the cops stopped and they stood on the other corner and everybody was looking at each other. Well, this lady comes out on the street that faces the north part of the campus, and she’s distracted. She slams on the brakes on her car and hits the service truck in the middle of the street and the guy is working on the traffic light. He grabs ahold of the traffic light and he’s swaying back and forth and it’s kind of the big distraction that needed to break the tension for Friday night.

 

Who directed that? Get all the students together? Just this mass, idiot, philosophy. I would say that the police should take some blame for that. Okay, that’s Friday night.

 

Saturday, somebody torches the old World War II building that they had built during the war and now the ROTC was using it. I think they were using it for a pistol range. So, here comes the fire department and somebody—they’re cutting their hoses, so the fire department packs up their gear and they went back. They can’t be protected and they can’t do their job, you know, to hell with this building. Which was, at that time, forty years old, or thirty, whatever. I didn’t stick around much for that because I said I had work to do at the Juvenile Court in Akron and my buddy, on his shift, some kids were trying to escape and he had been hit on the head with a hammer. They thought that would put him out, but Nick Delgrasso was not the kind of guy that goes out, he’s the kind of guy that gets angry. So anyhow, nobody escaped when I went to visit him.

 

So, I can’t report on Saturday, but Sunday, so here comes everybody back to school. Oh, this is exciting. We’ve seen you on television. And the school, somebody said it, “Kent State did for Kent State what fifty years of mediocre football couldn’t do.” Anyhow, everybody is gathering there and the National Guard has been called in, and so, they’re there. Well, this is really upscale, what’s happening now? So, all the students are coming back, being dropped off. Geez, they’re interested, so they went down to that corner where the old library was and the Robin Hood drinking establishment is across the street. So, they’re on that corner and the cops are on the other corner and there’s a helicopter up above and, whoa, this is something. Well, in the meantime, I had gone to the police as president of the Vet’s Club. I had, well, we were the largest in the nation, 1,500 dues-paying members. A lot of them were Vietnam vets, so these guys know how to handle themselves and probably better than anybody in uniform, the cop uniform, anyhow. So, we went down to see what the action was.

 

 We’re at the corner and it’s just students gathering, didn’t hear any disturbances. There was rumors that somebody was going to do this and that, okay, they’re rumors. So, I turned around to go back up to tell the chief what was going on, what we had discerned and there, the National Guard is coming down the hill, in the dark, behind the students. Now, who the hell came up with that plan? So, they challenged us, “How dare they have their weapons.” Great. So, I told this young lad, I said, “Just get your superior officer out here. Let’s find out what’s going on.” So, we did our talk with him and went through the ranks. They let us pass. So, we went up to the police station to tell Donny Schwartzmiller, he was an ex-Marine, Chief of Campus Police. Then, I guess the National Guard had encircled the students from the rear and then attacked. That’s an emotionally-toned word, but they came in, they surprised everybody, screaming, hollering, running away. A lot of these kids, and they were kids, didn’t know if they were going to get stabbed or shot or whatever. That was Sunday night, that’s not too cool, is it?

 

So, Monday, after class, I came out of a communications class and, on the bulletin board, was a big sign. It said, “Meet at the Commons. 11:30.” Or 12 o’clock, I don’t know. “Meet at the Commons.” So, went over to Blanket Hill and the crowd was gathering and somebody was ringing the [Victory] Bell and there, General Del Corso had his troops surrounding the smoldering remains of the ROTC Building. And so, people are gathering and all of a sudden, this sheriff, police sheriff, gets in the car, grabs the bullhorn, and they drive around the circle, the flat part—I’m up on Blanket Hill. There’s a dormitory to my left and, I don’t know, a newer building to my right. According to the Ohio Revised—

 

[the audio cuts out for a time at this point in the interview]

 

[Interviewer]: The bullhorn.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you, sorry about that.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Tell me when.

 

[Interviewer]: Yes sir, go ahead.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: All right, we’re standing as the crowd gathers, and Del Corso has his troops surrounding the smoldering remains of the ROTC Building, which is close to the cafeteria where maybe a lot of people were going to eat. Here comes the sergeant, police sergeant, and he grabs the bullhorn, gets in a jeep, and he’s riding around, saying, “According to the Ohio Revised Code, I order you to disperse.” Everybody laughed. Yeah, okay, we’re going somewhere? What the hell are you talking about? So, disperse where? Anyhow, he rode around again, a second time and, as he was giving us advice about the Ohio Revised Code and what chapter it was, somebody threw a rock, hit the jeep. The guy with the mic, still keyed, just freaked out. “Oh, my God.” He says, “They’re throwing rocks, keep going.” Well, everybody really laughed. He went back to the protection of Del Corso’s troops and then all of a sudden, these guys, a squad of them, or maybe all of them, I don’t know, but some stepped out and they donned gas masks. There was prevailing westerly winds, and I happened to be up on Blanket Hill to the East of them and pow, pow, pow, here comes the tear gas.

 

Well, that’s not an enjoyable thing but, in the Marine Corps, you have to go into a room where’s there’s tear gas and take your mask off and sing the Marine Corps’ hymn and then you can leave the shack. So, although it’s not pleasant, tear gas ain’t nothing new to me. Most of the kids never experienced anything like that and they were freaked out. Some were veterans, I guess, of the Chicago problems and they picked up the tear gas canisters and threw them back at the troops and they could throw further than the canisters were launched, so that was something. Anyhow, all of a sudden, here’s about thirty  guys, I don’t know maybe twenty, they advance.

 

So, this is a very interesting technique. There are maybe 10,000 people standing around there and Del Corso has launched twenty to thirty National Guardsmen at us. They march, they march, they come up the hill, so we stepped aside, they went through where the students were, the students closed behind them, they marched over the hill, and then to the rugby practice field. I know what it was because I played rugby at Kent State. Anyhow, that field is fenced in on three sides, whoops. So, they got nowhere to go. Then, some guys were picking up rocks and throwing them at the troops. Now, I thought to myself, that’s what I’m there to do. I’m there to find out who these guys are that are instigating, and we don’t need that kind of crap. Anyhow, the rocks were landing in where the troops were congested and you can see them lean in with their rifle. I thought, that was rather meaningless, what the hell?

 

Anyhow, there’s a chant going too, “Pigs off campus. Pigs off campus!” So, all of a sudden, these guys rise up and some of them have been hit in the shins. They start to jog back up that side of the hill, the east side of the hill. Well, it has the desired effect on the rock throwers because they ran away. All the people that were in the parking lot and off to that side of the campus, I don’t know, I have to insert my own interpretation. I think they thought they had succeeded in chasing the Army off campus because, as the troops jogged up the hill, here comes streaming out of the parking lot these students, “Pigs off campus.” Now, everybody wasn’t saying that but, anyhow, some are running at them. I, myself, went back over the hill and I’m not frightened about the rifles because a butt stroke or a lunge, if you’re four feet away from the troop who’s carrying the rifle, he can’t hurt you. So, I’m backing up and now I’m on the west side of that hill.

 

But, I can see that the troops have overextended themselves in this line and, when they get to the top of the hill, they have to wait for three or five guys to rejoin them because there’s a building there and they have to come up the hill and then go down where it’s clear. Well, as they’re waiting, all of a sudden, I hear, pop, pop, pop, pop. Now, I’m standing, I don’t think I’m ten feet away from them, on the western side of the line. And I say, “How in the hell are they doing that?” The M1 was my rifle in the Marine Corps and I’m looking at it and there’s no blank adapters. Well, okay, real fire. I ran over to the dormitory there, whatever name it was, and took cover.

 

They’re through shooting. They came down and back across the field towards the smoldering remains. Well then, I went over the hill to find out what had gone on and there’s the carnage: dead and wounded students laying all about. So, I went over to—the kid’s name I forgot—but the picture is—it’s the one they see and there’s a guy jumping up and down in the blood with the flag. And, actually, my neighbor at College Towers was there on her knees and then this kid from Florida, whoever. But I went over and took a look and the guy’s face is blown off, I mean a piece of it, and he had been bleeding. You could see the profuse pool of blood, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore. So, he’s dead. I looked around and I just grabbed hands and we made a big circle around people that were down, either dead or wounded. So, I have a tattoo on my right arm that says, “US MC” and, as I had my hand out, I remember this one person thought I was a baby-raping Marine green machine, whatever the hell she said. That’s how polarized some people were.

 

Okay, the ambulances came, there was confusion. Finally, word came out that the university was closed. But in the meantime, I had left because the ambulance had taken all the bodies and wounded. I went over the hill and there’s a group of students and there were two professors, I’ve forgotten their names. One was a sociology prof [editor’s clarification: Professor Jerry Lewis], and I don’t know what the other one was. There were some kids, a small group, and they were going to go talk to Del Corso. And thank God for those profs. “I can assure you,” he says, “That if you go down there, he’ll kill you.” And that’s just about how serious this situation was. So, that ended it. They broke up, went home, or went wherever they went, and the university closed.

 

Well, quite frankly, I went up to Canada and drank whiskey for a week. I came back and Donny Schwartzmiller wanted to know if some of the vets wanted to be policemen. And so, yeah, myself and about fifteen other guys became, as we called ourselves, “The Mod Squad.” We became campus policemen, and why not? Veterans who have been there, done that. Then, oh God, I don’t know, we sat on the campus for a while. The Commission for Commitment to Nonviolence was formed. [editor’s clarification: the full name of this commission was the University Commission to Implement a Commitment to Nonviolence, also known as the Kegley Commission]

 

I was one of the people guarding the president’s house because they thought he was—that something was going to happen to him. While I was there, that was later—anyhow, so, okay, that Commission for Commitment to Nonviolence, we met, and they were good-hearted. The intention was there, but the polarization—it turned out to be a political meeting, left-leaning faculty trying to make it Nixon’s problem. That’s not to say the invasion of Cambodia didn’t help or that Agnew’s utterances, I think he said, “They should have shot them all.” That was our illustrious vice president at that time. But as far as I was concerned—oh, as a policeman, I was ahead of myself, as a policeman, the Mod Squad, we searched every dormitory in the campus. Found a little grass, a few six packs of beer, and they desperately wanted the students to be at fault. As a matter of fact, somebody had offered up, “I saw a sniper on the roof.” Bullshit. Another was—

 

[Interviewer]: Can I ask you a quick question, Mr. Durand?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, so first of all, when was it that you became a part of this group of campus police?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: About, I would say, ten days after it happened.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. And so, had the students been told to leave campus by that point?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Let’s see. Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. And you said that you guys called yourselves the “Mod Squad.” What was that a reference to?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: The television show.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: The Mod Squad was a television show.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. And then, my last question is, so when they sent you into the dorms, what were you looking for?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: A rifle. A firearm. Ammunition. The FBI was there and they have procedures that they do right way. It was back in the day when there were cameras only on film, not in your phone, so every photo lab within a fifty-mile radius, the negatives were taken and looked at. Let’s see, who was the attorney general? Whoever he was, he sprang for the money and Schwartzmiller could hire additional police, at which time, he hired us.

 

They can look, but it was just bullshit. It was a bullshit order. It was bullshit tactics. Who thinks that way? I’m not saying this is 20/20 hindsight, I’m just saying I’m not sending fifteen or thirty guys into a crowd of 10,000. I don’t know, common sense just seemed to have departed. The Highway Patrol, we heard that the Highway Patrol, I think I just said that already, could handle crowds, large crowds. And they got batons and the front echelon can twirl these batons and you can’t stick anything in that motion six feet from the guys because man, you’ll get smacked. Well, that’s a lot better than shooting, isn’t it? It’s just, nationally, especially with the crimes that are on TV that you hear about, what’s the rush? What are these cops in such a big hurry to prove? Suicide by police is a phenomenon that you can count on. They come in and they’re going to assert their authority. Well, sit down, take a break, order a pizza, they ain’t going anywhere, hostages or suicides or the like! I mean, I’m brush-stroking the whole affair, but what is the hurry about? That’s what I said to the Scranton Commission when they came around, and I didn’t like that. You had to be vetted by this group to get in front of Scranton to say something. Well, that’s just a bullshit thing. Who’s got something to say? We’re not going to screen it through, as officials, to get something that supports a different opinion or the same opinion. I said it was just stupid. It was ludicrous. But what do I know?    

 

[Interviewer]: So, the Scranton Commission, what was that?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, because there were problems across the country, Governor Scranton and General Louis [editor’s clarification: the narrator might mean Benjamin O. Davis Jr.] and a couple other people were appointed to this fact-finding commission to go across the country and talk to people about the discontent. I guess I got picked because I was a student leader. Well, bullshit, that doesn’t make me know any more than anybody else. So, I’m the president of Vet’s Club, yay. What about the other guy? If you’re going to spend the money and take the time, then do it right. Anyhow, it was just a fact-finding committee and they wanted, I don’t know, whatever they came up with or whatever they did and it’s just more of the dance, more of the just distractions. Distract the populace and don’t change a damn thing. It bothers me that the college administration, they were used to educating people. They’re not used to this crisis. You think the school now—I wound up being a teacher. All of a sudden, the schools have taken over so many of the parental responsibilities. They’re feeding them, they’re counseling them, it’s just—I don’t know. How did we lose our way so soon? I’m going on eighty years of age this year and I sure as hell don’t understand what direction we’re headed.   

 

[Interviewer]: You said that someone screened you before you went before the Scranton Commission. Who was doing the screening?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Who was doing the screaming? You get emotional people anywhere.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, no sir, sorry. Screening, like who was choosing who was going before the commission?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Some junior committee of about three guys, I remember. They wanted to know who I was, and what I had to say and what I had done. I’m not going to, damn, I mean, that was their job, but it just seemed to be a rather phony thing. It was kind of like the politicians getting the questions before they go on stage. Is that right? Maybe you’re supposed to prepare yourself that way, I don’t know. But I always thought just the truth would work and tell the truth as you know it and see what comes up. So, I don’t know who they were. They were about my age and they weren’t that puffed up with their own importance, but they could get rid of some, “No, no, that’s it. Thank you so much. We don’t want you to talk. Next.”

 

[Interviewer]: Earlier, you mentioned that your time at Kent State radicalized you. So, how do you mean that? [00:49:29] Did it make you more firmly entrenched in your political views, or did it change your political views and make you more radical in the opposite direction of the views you previously held?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, I was a true believer, right? I went in the Marine Corps, I said, “Do with me as you will.” And I meant that. I truly meant that. I came out and I see how these guys were cashing in on my good will and they were using us as chattel. I mean, I’m not their servant. When I joined the Marine Corps, I was ready to go. When I came out and I could see the way these people started to act—the first thing is the prosecutor wanted 27 or 29 students—going to indict them. Well, isn’t that a son of a bitch? Here they go. And why? Well, I don’t know. Did the prosecutor have eyes on a bigger job or did he or she think that this would ingratiate them with the power structure? So, all this hidden agenda crap, like [Vice President Mike] Pence. Pence walked into the Mayo Clinic yesterday or the day before with no mask on, in a hospital, in the Mayo Clinic, and everybody stood around. Throw that son of a bitch out of the hospital until he gets a mask! That’s what you’d do to me. That’s what they’d do to you. But rank has its privileges or, “Well, we can’t treat him rough because he runs this fund.” Okay, I’m just on my soapbox. 

 

[Interviewer]: That’s all right. That’s fine. Would you say then that your experience at Kent State and seeing what went on, did that make you—where did that shift you on the political spectrum?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Independent. I don’t believe any of them. Their agenda, their national committees, they’re just people. You hear from time to time, “He’s beyond repute.” “I am beyond repute.” Yeah, well I got this to say, I am man, therefore no thing human is foreign to me. Until those people can accept that anything could go, any temptation. It’s just a carnival show. You see these people going after the same old thing that I guess human nature’s gone after forever and maybe this is an eighty-year-old with experience talking, but they either want broads, booze, money, or power. That stuff don’t last forever, baby! It just—it don’t work, it don’t work. You get maybe ten-minute action, then it’s over.

 

So, I don’t know. I’m just offering—what did it do to me politically? It made me view politicians—what we need is a revolution. We need some drastic changes. They are so polarized, left or right, a couple of Supreme Court Justices were picked and not because they were brilliant scholars, but for their politics. Well, that ain’t the Supreme Court. What do you say? It’s, oh, boy, my head is spinning now with what to say. It’s just human nature, man. You got power. I saw guys in the Marine Corps, they were a lance corporal one day and a sergeant the next or the corporal the next. “Oh, my god, well move into the sergeant’s quarters.” It just changed them. It changed them. That’s a military reference, but authority and power does things to people and you should—it all doesn’t make sense. Because they wrap it and dress to and put it towards their end. I was a probation officer for a while. I knew how to write a pre-sentence investigation. It’s emotionally toned words that get you where you want to go. Maybe that’s the communications aspect, to know what words to use. Well, everybody’s got to learn their own lessons and I’ve learned mine, and then I’m going in the ground. So, learn your own lesson. 

 

[Interviewer]: [00:56:13] Yes, sir. Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about in relation to April, May of 1970 that we haven’t covered?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: The horror is that the campuses used to be safe. Now, they have safety zones. On campus, you could say what you wanted to say. You could have freedom. Now, you can’t. Everything is politicized. “Oh, no, well, he meant this.” Or, “He meant that.” Or, “Oh, I’m offended.” Well, you know what, I’m sorry for the offense. I’m sorry that you feel that way, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t say what I said. It’s like a joke. Well, people laugh at jokes, right? If ain’t nobody laughing, then it’s a bad joke. You can’t stop them trying. Comedians today just are having a difficult time and I think that it lapses into something that we should all be aware of. Universities used to be a safe ground for free thought and you’re going to get the freakos and the weirdos, and if they find a following, well then, they find a following. That’s education, both sides, and let’s investigate the entire problem. Let’s investigate all sides, not one, not the north and south, but the east and the west and the north by northeast, and the south by southwest. You know, everybody rushes to judgement and, quite frankly, they have an agenda. Let it happen. And then lastly, for what it’s worth, we’re godless. Everybody wants an immediate reaction to what they have, what I want. Dammit, this is what I need. And it’s just—no trust. No confidence. None of that crap. I used to drive a truck and I went past a church in Indiana once and the front-of-the-church thing said, “Invest your life in something that outlasts it.” Man, what the hell was that? I drove my truck around the block, read that again. “Invest your life in something that outlasts it.” And I guess if I thought that this is all there was, I might be a different person, but I got faith in truth and love and that’s what I’ve invested in, so, let it be. Let it be.  

 

[Interviewer]: Yes sir. All right. So, I do have one more quick question for you.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: All right.

 

[Interviewer]: In the information that I was sent regarding you, just a couple of the sentences that I had ahead of this interview, it mentioned that you were a police informant while you were at Kent State? So, is that when you were going back and forth from the police and the protests, or is that something else?

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Informant, no, that’s when I was going back and forth to the police, telling them, and then we got hired. Now, what was it? When they reopened the school, during the fall, they cut down the flag and I and a few people stopped them from doing that and I took the flag. That was a different incident. Some organization, political organization, was supposed to kill me for that. Police informant, I had no idea. I’m toying with the idea of saying something here. I’ve been to a few sides of the tracks and I’m just a person, you know. I’m just a person. Well, maybe I won’t say that.

 

I had my troubles with drugs and alcohol as well, so how did that shape me? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve been in AA for forty years and that shaped me. Yep. So, life goes on, I’ve tasted about everything life has to offer. The only problem was that I—my history, before I came to Kent State, prepared me in a better way than a lot of those students who were ten years younger than I was and, I guess, pretty naïve. In a way, they weren’t naïve because everything they said turned out to be true. We were used, as we can read now. They knew that the Vietnam War was a joke. They still fed the machine. The reports from the generals on the field were bullshit. The politicians knew it. That was bullshit. They take care of themselves. It’s like insurance. Geez, health insurance, what a problem. Hey, I can solve that problem tomorrow. We’ll take the same insurance policy that the Congress gets. “Oh, well, you mean our special sacred class?” Yeah, we’ll take the same insurance policies they have. So, how did we get there, right?

 

[Interviewer]: Yes sir. Well, that’s totally fine and I appreciate you telling me your story and it was fascinating to listen to. Thank you for making your own contribution to this project and to the historical record more broadly.

 

[Dennis G. Durand]: Okay, Ben. Good talking to you, too.

 

[End of interview]

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