While At Ft. Devens
A couple hundrend guys in the Headquarters Co. trained for riot control. I had to go through riot control training. A two week course. The brass thought that maybe one of the great Universities in the Boston Area would have a riot. However that never occurred. But, Kent state took place shortly after I got out. I told my wife, they made a lot of mistakes, and I'm sure they weren't as well trained or disciplined as the regulars, sad situation to say the least. It should never have happened. From everything I've read the students were not a particular threat that day. However, they were a threat, there would have been a series of proceedures to process before using live ammunition. We were told we wouldn't be given live ammunition if we went to a riot. Our instructors felt that M-16 with bayonets would be a big enough threat to break up any crowd. I think handing out the live rounds was the big mistake! Someone should have been held responsible for that gross mistake.
Keith
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