A Crowd Control Experience

All of the daily news reports and videos of the terrible crowd control tactics of trump's masked storm troopers has brought back some personal stressful memories from 55 years ago when I underwent military training in crowd control. I was an 18 year old kid.

That was in May 1970 following the Kent State shootings. I was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station outside Chicago where I was training in ship propulsion systems. After Kent State the base commanders where expecting large protest demonstrations. I was put into a special unit and did some extensive training in crowd control that included swinging a baton and shield while marching forward in step. Back and forth for hours we practiced. We also worked with a unit of Marines who were regular guards for the base. I was in the third row behind the Marines. I probably got more training than these ICE goons today.

I was really scared. It was only less than a year earlier in the summer and fall of 1969 that I had myself participated in anti-war protest demonstrations. Quite a few of them including a recent march to the Pentagon in Washington DC.  And now here I was on the other side of the line.

Fortunately there were no demonstrations that spring at the Great Lakes base. There was plenty of demonstrations around the country at military bases but they were concentrated at Army bases like Fort Dix, Fort Lawton, etc. but not where I was stationed. Also most demonstrations were on college campuses. After a week or two our group was disbanded although I guess since I was trained I could have been called up at any time but it didn't happen. I was still worried for a few a couple of months and then I went home on emergency leave to bury my father. I wasn't thinking about protest marches anymore.