Brian Kunz, Oral History

 

Recorded: January 21, 2026

Interviewed by Liz Campion

Transcribed by Smart Noter AI; reviewed by Abigail Fife

 

[Interviewer]:  00:01 This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist, speaking on Wednesday, January 21, 2026. As part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview over the telephone today. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  00:22 Brian Kunz.

 

[Interviewer]:  00:23 Thank you, Brian. I would like to begin with some brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little bit better. Could you tell us were born and where you grew up?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  00:35 I was born and raised in Akron, Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]:  00:37 Right down the road from Kent. When did you first come to Kent State University?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  00:46 To the university? I came in the fall of 1967.

 

[Interviewer]:  00:51 And what brought you to Kent State?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  00:56 Oh, it's, I think, one of the schools I applied to. And so, I was familiar with it because I would go up there to socialize on weekends, so I thought it was going to fit me as a place to go to school.

 

[Interviewer]:  01:16 And what was your major when you enrolled as a student?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  01:22 I didn't declare a major right away, and I took some art classes, and I ended up psychology and a sociology double major.

 

[Interviewer]:  01:34 Okay. Wow. Were you involved in any student organizations? And if so, can you describe your roles in those?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  01:42 I joined a fraternity that first year I was there, Phi Gamma Delta, or called FIJI, and I was a member for a year or two. And other than that, that was kind of my only affiliation I can remember.

 

[Interviewer]:  02:05 And did you have any student employment during your time on campus?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  02:11 Yes, a lot. I worked in the dining hall. I took a gap year. I graduated from high school in 1966, and I wanted to take a gap year to earn some money because I wanted to be more independent. But then, I realized I had to go to school because I’d get drafted. So, I took night classes at Akron University and then arrived at Kent that following fall. So, I had some credits with me as I came. That's why I was put into a dorm system that was for transfer students. I don't know why they put all transfer students together, but that's how my college year started. I'll say one anecdote. When I went to see my high school counselor, which I didn't get along with, she didn't like the way I was sitting in the chair, and she ordered me out of the room. Then I never came back, so I never got any advice.

 

[Interviewer]:  03:14 Oh, my. You mentioned living spaces or living quarters for transfer students. Did you live on campus or off campus during the duration of your time at Kent State?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  03:28 I lived on campus or on private apartments or things like fraternity house, things like that.

 

[Interviewer]:  03:34 How did you view the protest and the Vietnam War when you first arrived on campus?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  03:46 I was supportive of being against the war. I knew some high school friends who were killed in the war pretty early on, and seeing the television footage. By the time I got there, I was against the war.

 

[Interviewer]:  04:05 How would you describe the prevailing attitudes or mood amongst the students in that spring of 1970?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  04:17 Once the war expanded into Cambodia, which is that Thursday, April 30^th, that would have--that catch things up pretty quickly. And before that, I think we went through that lottery sometimes prior to the spring term. I was lucky, I got a really high lottery number. Other people didn't. And so, I didn't have as much worry about having to be drafted, but I was still supportive of my friends who might be. Why are we there? And it seemed like a really futile waste of people and treasure.

 

[Interviewer]:  05:07 Follow up to that, how politically involved or active would you have described yourself at the time? And did you participate in any protests or political organizations?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  05:21 I didn't join any political organization, but I did go to D.C. once or twice to protest, and I was supportive. I remember watching the Black students march out of campus, the BUS, and that was early on, probably in ‘68 or ‘69. That was something that awakened me to their plight. And I went to an integrated school in Akron, and I was brought up around minorities.

 

[Interviewer]:  06:03 You mentioned you attended a protest in Washington, D.C. Do you recall any experiences that kind of stick out in your head from that? What do you recall from that protest?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  06:17 Well, the tear gas—some policeman didn't like the way I looked and started chasing me, and I got away from him. People didn't like people who didn’t belong there, and especially if you were an authority. It was tension and driving there, driving back, driving around Ohio, especially in the rural parts, you weren't welcome.

 

[Interviewer]:  06:53 Was your family aware of the protests that were taking place on campus? And if so, did any of them communicate their feelings about the protest or the war?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  07:05 During that May 1^st time, you mean?

 

[Interviewer]:  07:08 Yeah, I would say around that spring 1970 time?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  07:14 Yes. You know, I didn't go home much. I really liked being away from home, being in the campus environment. And so, we didn't really talk politics at home and about the war. I don't have any kind of remembrance of—

 

[Interviewer]:  07:37 Do you remember what the environment in your classes were like in the spring of 1970?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  07:46 Oh, I had a great class called Small Group, Small Group Process. We were learning about how democracy—and it was a really powerful course at that time. Of course, we had to complete it remotely once campus closed. But that really helped me understand what was going on. I still have the book from that. I can't remember the title exactly, but it's something about democracy and about people's rights to speak and protest and things like that.

 

[Interviewer]:  08:29 Prior to the shootings, what was your sense of how local Kent community members perceived the Kent State students?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  08:37 Oh, the local people did not like students that much. They like the money we spend in town, but a lot of them didn't like the way we looked. I know we looked different because we were, all of a sudden—longer hair and funny clothes that weren't like regular clothes people would wear. Created a distance between the community and us.

 

[Interviewer]:  09:06 Now, I understand you were downtown on Friday, May 1^st. Did you have plans or was it a spontaneous trip to go downtown?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  09:16 It was spontaneous. Going downtown on a Friday night is pretty common. That's why I went.

 

[Interviewer]:  09:24 What do you remember about the mood downtown throughout the evening?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  09:30 Well, people were upset about the expansion of the war. And I guess I would go into the details of what I was witnessing that agitated and got everybody worked up as the evening went on?

 

[Interviewer]:  09:47 Yeah, absolutely. Can you describe what interactions you witnessed, especially as authorities arrived downtown?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  09:54 Okay. So, it was hot. It was the first spring weekend when it was warm weather, and I was in a bar that you could walk directly out onto the sidewalk. It wasn't the bar where you had to go downstairs. And so, it was easy to kind of come in and out of that bar and cool off in the street. The sidewalk was crowded and people ended up on the street a little bit. I know that local town police would drive by once in a while and that continued until I saw somebody throw a beer bottle. I saw it arcing through the air and landing on the trunk of that police car. And they sped off and they stopped driving by.

 

And then, I remember a car coming down the road and it was going slow because there's people in the road. And they were heading north away from the center of town. And it was a middle-aged couple, a man and a woman, and a woman got in front of their car because they had slowed down enough, they were actually stopped, and put her hands on the hood and looked at them and started yelling, “Stop the war! Stop the war!” And I was close enough to look at the two people in the car and see them look at each other, wondering, What war? What are you talking about? And then when the driver looks left out his side window, all of us kind of move forward to see what was going to happen. And I think our movement frightened him. And he put the foot on the gas and he ran that woman over. And that really got—I don't think she was—she obviously wasn’t killed or we would have read about it, and I don't think she was that seriously injured, but I really can't remember that part. I couldn't see her. But that really got everybody so anxious, seeing somebody run over by a car, and the people in the car just sped off. And so that really got the anxiety and tension quite high. And nobody was really doing anything wrong up to that point. Maybe they got in the road and slowing traffic down.

 

But at some point after that, I looked north, and we all did, and there was a line of law enforcement coming toward us on the street, on the sidewalk. So, they were just going to push us toward the center of town. I don't know why, but we all ran away. And that was—I don't know how many hundreds of people over there. And we started running toward that Main Street/Water Street intersection. But I got diverted in the alley that goes up behind those storefronts on the other side. And there was a deputy sheriff who kind of figured out that would be the best place to hit students or anybody else running by. And he was there with a club, and he hit the person in front of me as hard as he could. And I ran under when he raised his hand and hit the person behind me, again, as hard as he could swing that thing. And I got up, you know, I didn't get hurt, and I got up to the top of that alley and stepped onto Main Street, saw some of my friends and heard that some of the glass was broken in that storefront. And then somehow the—whatever direction these law enforcers took, we started having to move away from downtown, moving toward campus. I don't think we were running, but we were obviously needing to leave. They were pushing us. Once we got onto the library lawn and law enforcement kind of stopped on the other side of the street because I didn't think they knew whether they had jurisdiction to cross over. So, it was like a stalemate then. And then eventually people just wandered off and I had to go all the way across camp to get where I live, which is in—can't remember the name exactly—College Towers, which is beyond that small group housing I started living in. And so that's how that day ended.

 

[Interviewer]:  13:51 The following morning, did you hear people talk about what had happened downtown? Were there conversations about the authorities or the vandalism? Do you have any kind of recollections of takeaways from that night?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  14:09 I don't remember much of the daytime. I don't remember. I may have heard the news broadcast about how angry [Governor] Rhodes was and the town was. I can't remember exactly when these radio announcements I was hearing or what day I heard, whether it was from Saturday or Sunday. But that was my recollection.

 

[Interviewer]:  14:42 To quickly go back, you mentioned that there were probably a few hundred people. Do you recall, or have a good idea, if it seemed to be more students or if it was kind of a mixture of community members, students, et cetera. That were downtown that evening?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  15:01 I think it was mostly students. And there are still probably people that come in, other people, not Kent students, but students from other colleges or other places that come up to socialize in the bars down there.

 

[Interviewer]:  15:19 So after the events of May 1^st, we move to the evening of May 2^nd, the night of the ROTC fire. Where were you located on campus during that time?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  15:31 I went to the center of campus. I think we were prevented from going downtown on Saturday. I think there was an announcement that we couldn't leave campus. And so, I went to that area where the ROTC building is and was there with all the other people that were there. I remember people trying to light the curtains on fire. And that didn't work very well. Then somebody finally got it going, and then the firemen arrived, and there was a tug of war with a fire hose between students who didn't want to put the fire out [and] firemen trying to do their job. And that went on for a while, but the building really was going by then. Then I think it started to rain, or light rain, and then it was dark.

All of a sudden, you could see this, like in a World War II movie, these soldiers coming with their rifles and bayonets, kind of walking shoulder to shoulder, hundreds of them sweeping up toward us. And so, people started going away. I think we went uphill. I went uphill to the left. I kind of remember there was an archery building there, and I was taking archery, and somebody wanted to—thought they should burn that down or break it up. And I said, “Don't do that.” And then, funny enough, people wanted to go into the dorms, at that point, and see if anything made the TV news. And so that was a funny thing that people—most dorms had a central TV room and that was crowded with people trying to see. Does this make the news here? Does anything in Kent make the news?

 

[Interviewer]:  17:17 When the fire began, is there anything you remember about the crowd around you? The size, the behaviors or emotions or kind of how people were responding?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  17:28 I think people were—I don't use the word happy, but they were okay with that building on fire. I'm sure people were shouting against the war. And whether there was any argument between groups of students, I can't remember that. Just remember people watching and seeing what's going on. And once you see a fire, it's pretty—you can't take your eyes off.

 

[Interviewer]:  18:04 I know you mentioned that authorities came to respond to the fire, for example, firefighters and police. But do you recall if there were any campus administrators that responded to that fire, as if trying to get the students to disperse or anything?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  18:24 No, I don't remember anybody talking to us. I don't remember anybody talking to us Friday night. There wasn't a way of communicating easily with the crowd, especially outdoors. I don't remember anybody trying to exert control or trying to persuade people to go away or anything else.

 

[Interviewer]:  18:50 What was the atmosphere on campus the day following the ROTC fire like?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  18:58 Again, my memory about the daytime is—I just haven’t retained that.

 

[Interviewer]:  19:04 Okay.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  19:05 And so I can't speak to that.

 

[Interviewer]:  19:09 Okay. As National Guard’s presence became known on campus, do you have any specific memories or interactions with those guardsmen?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  19:20 Yes. And I remember walking around campus on that Sunday and seeing armored personnel carriers, I'm not sure if I saw a tank, and soldiers, and highway patrol, state troopers. And you could see them, and later, you would think, Yes, they did have ammunition and stuff like that. And you didn't really take it in that they might shoot that stuff. And there was—people were pretty friendly and putting flowers in the muzzle of a gun. And it was kind of like almost a holiday atmosphere. That we're kind of recognizing they got a job to do and we're students and we have a job to do, too.

 

[Interviewer]:  20:13 Can you walk us through your experience, the day of May 4, 1970?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  20:20 Well, let me just comment on Sunday. So, the daytime went by, but in the evening, things started ramping up. I was wandering around campus, like other people, and these helicopters would fly over us with these huge spotlights. And once you're under that spotlight, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if they're going to start dropping things on you or whatever. I can't remember if they were using a megaphone to talk to us, but we were just wandering on campus. But unfortunately, I remember seeing somebody throwing rocks at windows and dormitories and you're going to hurt students that way. There was things going on that night. What stuck out is the whole noise of those helicopters, which it reminds you of watching a newscast of Vietnam and those helicopters, and you're kind of like taken to that war front, right there, with these huge spotlights just kind of illuminating everything.

 

[Interviewer]:  21:28 And that has to be a jarring experience, especially on a college campus, to see helicopters. One question I meant to ask before we get into May 4, is that evening, or kind of in the lead up to, were you understanding or had you heard of a protest that was supposed to take place on May 4?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  21:54 I didn't. I'm not sure when I first heard that there was going to be a protest on Monday, May 1^st [editor’s clarification: Monday, May 4]. And I think it was by a leaflet that we were alerted. I don't know how I got the word that—protest at noon. Up to that point, nothing happened in the daytime. Daytime was just people were just being people. But once it got dark, that's like Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday night, things started happening. I went to class on Monday. I was dressed to go to class. I wasn't dressed to be running around and went to class up until—I don't know when the last one was over, at 11:30 or something. And then I saw the flyer, the unsigned flyer from the administration about not going to the center of campus at Blanket Hill, they call it. And so, I said, “Well, I'm going to go there, of course.” And so, I could stop there. I'm just going to ask another question before we get into what happened that day.

 

[Interviewer]:  23:05 No, feel free to continue.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  23:08 So I saw that the Guardsmen were all around the burned out ROTC Building. That was their kind of like headquarters. Somehow, I got up on that hillside. I was on the left side of the hill, and then listening to—I thought it was the military man in charge. That was him standing up in the jeep in a suit. And they were driving around with a megaphone, shouting at us, “This is illegal. You've got to leave.” We aren't soldiers. You can't order us around like that. So, most people just gave them the finger or, tell them to fuck off. They did that for a while, and then they started marching up there, trying to shoot the tear gas. Not sure if they shoot it or threw it, but at that point, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for that tear gas to affect us. I remember seeing students run up, and if they were careful, they could pick that tear gas up and throw it back at the Guard.

 

I heard later that if you got that chemical on your hand, it would hurt, but that was what I was witnessing. They kept marching up, and so I kind of went where the tear gas took me or wherever their movements took me. And I found myself moving to the right across the top of the—not right at the top of the hill, but somewhere along that hillside, moving away from those Guardsmen. Then I found myself looking down toward where the football stadium is. You know, it's a long way off, but there was the big gym, I think is down there, and there was a squadron of Guardsmen there, just standing around guarding whatever they're guarding. I didn't want to go down that way. So, I turned and kinda made a circle heading back toward the top of the hill in Taylor Hall.

 

And on the way around, I heard noise like fireworks or gunfire. I ran into students who were milling around, and I was asking what happened. They said, “We don't know. Sounds like firecrackers.” And so, I kept walking. Then I came upon Jeffrey Miller, who was lying on the street there with blood, roaring down, running down the road. And then I just—you can't understand the emotion, seeing something like that that you have no idea that could have happened. And he was so obviously dead, nobody was around him. That shot of that woman standing over him, that must have happened before. Because I was in no hurry walking around—as I was walking about the buildings, there's no urgency to go anywhere. And so, I don't know how much time it took me to get to where the actual wounded and the dead were. But then, once I looked up and could see groups of people standing around, dead or dying or wounded, students, and getting a sense of the scale of this and then—a little confusing what happened there.

 

But eventually at the top of the hill, and a woman I know comes up running up to me and says, “Have you seen Jim? Have you seen Jim?” Her boyfriend; and I hadn't seen him, but then, luckily, he showed up, a few minutes later. He described how he was in the line of fire and what that was like. As we're standing there, and you could look down and some students were going all the way down to where those Guardsmen were circling around that burned-out building and standing right in front of their rifles. It wasn't very smart, but that's what they were doing. Others were just milling around. You just didn't know what to do. You were absolutely confounded. Then there was that professor running around yelling, “Don't go down there, it's going to be a massacre! You can't do this! We do support your Vietnam protest, but you're going to—you're going to die! Just don't go down there!” He’s yelling like that and you're kind of taking all this in.

 

Eventually people started walking away. I started walking to where I live, which is again further away from the center of campus, running into students who had no idea what had happened. Then running into people who said, “Yeah, I think some Guardsmen were shot,” because of that false report that went out. Eventually, I got to the parking area in front of those apartment buildings I lived in, College Towers, I think they're called. Then a car came by with a megaphone on top and announcing that campus is closed, there will be buses to take you out of here. Everything's over. And so, you kind of took that in. I had a friend who had a car and so we started—grabbed some things and got into his car—and we started driving out.

 

It was really scary driving out because, all along the way out of town, there was state troopers and Guardsmen and you could just see the fear in their face because they thought they might get shot or attacked. We felt the fear of seeing them with all their guns at their hip. It was just so tense. And we drove out of there.

 

[Interviewer]:  29:04 To go back a little bit, I want to understand kind of the crowd that day. One of the things you mentioned is, after you had heard the gunshots, or what you believed were firework sounds, it sounds like everyone was kind of in a state of shock. Do you recall any voices or was it more silent in that reaction in the immediate aftermath?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  29:37 There was some silence, but there was also—I think I even turned toward where the troops were down at the bottom of the hill and said, “What do think you doing? What kind of crazy people are you?” Other people were shouting against the Guard and trying to alert people that so many people got hurt and killed.

 

[Interviewer]:  30:05 When you had learned—I know that you had witnessed Jeff Miller and other students that had been shot. Do you recall the first time you had learned the total number and what was your immediate reaction to that news?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  30:26 I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I do recall that people explained to me that people went into the Taylor Hall, the journalism building, and were staring at the AP wire service, waiting for it to tell them what happened. Which is not going to do, because they don't know more than you do, in a way. So, it's really hard to kind of assess a situation so dynamic as that and who's got the headcount. That book that I read that got me connected with you, it gave me a fuller picture of what was happening and people going to the hospital and how they were treated and things like that. But I didn't go. I didn't see any of that.

 

[Interviewer]:  31:22 What were the days and weeks like after May 4 for you?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  31:28 Terrible. I was at home. When I left, we went with my friend and we drove his—he lived in eastern Pennsylvania and we went hiking on the Appalachian Trail and then we ended up in Washington, D.C. for a protest that followed that shooting. I don't know how many days later. And so, I was there for that. Then eventually came home and, unfortunately, I'd never really called my parents to tell them I was okay. They were really worried about me, but I don't know why I didn't, but—

 

[Interviewer]:  32:06 That was my next question, was wondering if your parents had heard that news. And I imagine they were worried and I was curious about if they had contacted you or vice versa.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  32:21 Yes, because we don't have a way to contact each other if you're on the road. So, I never called them. I just assumed, I'm okay, I know that. And I assumed they knew that too. But they wouldn't have known that.

 

[Interviewer]:  32:35 Can you talk about what it was like to do coursework in that remote way after they were asking you to leave campus?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  32:46 Yes. Today when something like this happens, there's going to be a whole load of support given to bystanders, witnesses, to help them cope with something like this. We had nothing of that. We were expelled from campus. We were isolated. We were— not anybody that witnessed it with you, you could talk to. It was lonely. I was at home. I don't know, I can't remember how we got communication on how to complete our courses. I assume it by letter, and that takes forever. And having to work on my courses and finish that. It was just really painful, frustrating. Then you're ferociously reading the newspapers and listening. And, again, we left there thinking, I wonder if this will make the news. We had no idea that what we witnessed was so monumental. Because Kent State doesn't do monumental things. And so here we are, and fifty-five years later, people are talking about it.

 

[Interviewer]:  34:03 Absolutely. Were you hesitant to return to Kent State University once the campus resumed?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  34:10 No. I wasn't worried about my safety. I wanted to finish and get out of there. And I wanted to get back to my friends and my people I knew that I could talk to. I had a summer job in Lake George, New York, so eventually I'm going to leave my family's home and go there for the summer and then come back to campus. Which I did. And it was nice to be back, nice to see your friends and be able to kind of process what had happened.

 

[Interviewer]:  34:42 One of the questions I asked earlier was about how the local Kent community members perceived the Kent State students prior to the shootings. I'm curious if your thoughts changed on how they perceived the Kent State students after the shootings.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  35:00 That's a good question. And I can't remember—I mean, what contact I had with locals was when I was shopping for groceries. The bar owners, maybe. There was a lot of different merchants. I kind of remember Halcyon Days or something like that, a store at the top of the hill above Main Street [editor’s clarification: 176 E. Main St.]. There were people who were not the traditional community members, but new entrepreneurs that were opening things, and so you got to know them a little bit. I think there was this Robin Hood restaurant or bar right across the campus and things like that.

 

[Interviewer]:  35:51 Do you recall if faculty, staff, or administrators addressed the events publicly or privately once the students returned on campus?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  36:01 It's a good question, and I can't really remember discussions in class about this. but I do recall that, when there were protests in the fall, when we came back, that the faculty, the staff, were much better trained to address it. I remember one of the student protest leaders was up, kind of saying, “The administration has done this! The administration has done that!” And then the faculty member said, calling this person by name, “Robert, that's not true. These are not true statements you're making.” And deflated this protest leader immediately. And so, they were much better trained. And the trouble with the whole thing was nobody was trained to deal with May 4^th or May 1^st, and they just did it in such a sloppy—I mean, where do they expect us to run? If you're taking people away from Water Street, they're going to end up in the center of town and running uphill toward campus. Did they think about where we would go and what that would mean? [They could] push it in another direction? I don't know. I mean, it just seems that there was such an inept effort by most people. They're better at it today.

 

[Interviewer]:  37:26 I'm curious, how have the events surrounding May 4 and its aftermath impacted you personally, professionally and or politically?

 

[Brian Kunz]: 37:40. Well, even though my family lives in Ohio, and my parents are dead, but I have siblings there, I don't like going to Ohio. I don't like reading about Ohio and politics. I don't like the way they do things. And so, I don't want to go there. I think after I left, I think I came back to—I must have come back after the shootings to get my stuff out of that apartment. Then I came back in the fall, and I graduated in the June of ‘71. I came back maybe two years later, for some reason. And so that’s my recollection but maybe I didn't answer your question.

 

[Interviewer]:  38:33 Have you returned to campus at all to attend any of the commemorative events or memorials honoring those wounded and killed?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  38:41 No. I feel sorry about reading them through the years, how difficult their life was and how it shouldn't have happened. Here I work on the college campus, at Dartmouth College, and through my time here, I've been asked to repeat what I told you to a psychology class and to an English class that was focusing on Vietnam literature and things like that.

 

[Interviewer]:  39:21 Is there anything else you would like to talk about that we haven't covered today?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  39:30 I really appreciated the people who put that work into our graduating yearbook in 1971, that really covered a lot of the newspaper clippings. They even had that photograph record of all the newscast with the Governor Rhodes going crazy, and the actual shooting, recording of the shooting and how long that lasted, and all the incendiary language that the office, the authorities were spraying at us, and Nixon's attitude, and Agnew's attitude. All that, it's just so painful to recall. But to see those pictures in that yearbook, it’s pretty profound. Even the cover was profound.

 

I wanted to forget it. I pity people that didn't leave campus and that made who they are for the rest of their lives, that incident. I was glad to get out of there and forget about it. Tried to forget about it, but I didn't want to obsess about it. I know every time I see a world incident where, like Tiananmen Square, or anything like that, I go back to Kent. And I said, “Yes, I was in that situation.” And I wish I could have been there in these newer situations to tell people, “Watch out! Anybody who's got a gun is going to use it if they get scared.” And you just got to pay attention. You got to be careful.

 

[Interviewer]:  41:08 Are there any takeaways that you hope that future generations have, in regards to learning about this piece of history?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  41:18 I'm sorry, my phone's getting a ringtone. So, we'll just ignore that. Ask that question again, please.

 

[Interviewer]:  41:29 Are there any takeaways that you would like future generations to have in regards to learning about this history?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  41:39 Yes, that they can—no one should forget it. And to think about those lives of those wounded people and how they had to struggle and—let alone the lives that were lost that never got to do the things I got to do. And just the reaction of some of the local people in Ohio that just kind of used that—they still to this day probably think Guardsmen were shot and not students. And it's just—today climate is just as bad as it was back then. And every time I see something in Minneapolis or anywhere else, I’m kind of thinking tragedy is going to happen. People aren't paying attention. But how do they learn from a campus fifty-five years ago? It's a long time ago.

 

[Interviewer]:  42:38 Absolutely. Is there anything else you would like to share that we haven't covered?

 

[Brian Kunz]:  42:43 No, not that I can think of right now. My friend, John Darnell, he took those pictures of the Guardsmen shooting. I remember him telling me that they tried to take his camera. Somebody did. So, he jumped in his car and drove home to his father's newspaper, the Boardman Press or something in Boardman, Ohio, and copyrighted the pictures. Then the FBI came and took them, too. But he had the copyright. He did a good job there capturing that shooting.

 

[Interviewer]:  43:19 Absolutely. Well, Brian, I want to thank you.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  43:23 I guess there's one more thing I would say.

 

[Interviewer]:  43:25 Yes.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  43:25 So when we came back that fall, and they had all these hotlines, if you suspect something, give us a call. And we're going to make sure everything's checked out. So being young people, kind of foolish, we would call that hotline and say things like, “I just saw Jerry Rubin downtown. Do we need to worry about that?” People on the other end would, “Okay, let me take a note of that.” And then we'd wait twenty minutes and someone else would call with a new voice saying—so they had a confirmation. And we make them worry when they shouldn't have to worry. But that's what we did.

 

[Interviewer]:  43:59 Well, thanks for sharing that. And, Brian, I want to thank you for your participation in the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project.

 

[Brian Kunz]:  44:07 Okay.

 

[End of Recording]

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