The curtain rises on the morning of May 2, the day following the announcement of the Vietnam War's latest escalation. Student anger overflowed the campus, spilling into the streets of Kent, smashing windows downtown and injuring five police officers. That violence set the stage for a series of battles pitting students against the "establishment."

The voices of some of the actors in those turbulent days still echo from a recording distributed with the 1971 Chestnut Burr yearbook:

"I am distressed and appalled at the destruction within the city during the past eight hours. As mayor, I have declared an emergency exists, and a curfew will be in effect at 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 2,1970."

Kahler wasn't in Kent the weekend after the invasion. He had gone home to celebrate his 20th birthday on May 1, and he heard about the student uprisings from radio and television reports.

When his parents drove him back on Sunday afternoon, they were met at the city limits by guardsmen who questioned them extensively.

"They were asking us who we were, where we were going and what our business was, how long we were going to be there, that whole thing," Kahler recalled. "My dad said it reminded him of the occupation troops in Korea after World War II. There was just military everywhere."

The severity of the scene gave his parents some obvious qualms about dropping him off. Kahler's mother, Elaine, said she and her husband realized the potential danger, but in the end, Dean chose to go. "We didn't really like that decision, but he had classes, and he said he wanted to do it," Mrs. Kahler said.

Kahler said they discussed the situation at length while waiting to get back into Kent. "All three of us decided that I was paying for my own education, college was to be in session the next day, and I would be probably told what I was allowed to do and wasn't allowed to do. We were sure the administration wouldn't just leave us hanging out there without any information about what was going on.

"I wasn't planning on getting close to anybody so I could be beaten up with a bayonet or billy club or anything like that, so we decided, 'Yeah, might as well go'"

This (the burning of the ROTC building) is the most treacherous act that I can possibly recall in a place supposedly very highly civilized and, I thought, a very academic environment. At the present time, I think: Vietnam would probably be a pleasure.

Kahler's presence in the protests of May 3 and 4 was not accidental. He held concrete views that would not let him just sit back and watch.

"I had very definite views about the war in Vietnam - very definite views about war itself, being a conscientious objector," he said. "I felt that the invasion of Cambodia was totally wrong. I felt that Richard Nixon had lied to the American public during his campaign of 1968, when he said he had a secret plan to end the war. It looked to me like his secret plan was to send more of my friends back in body bags."

Kahler and his family belong to the Church of the Brethren, a denomination with beliefs similar to the Quakers and Mennonites, and Kahler held tight to the tenet that all war is wrong. With film of Vietnam shown every night on the news and his friends coming back from the service with first-hand tales of the horrors, he had all the proof he needed to support that stance. As a conscientious objector, Kahler would have been required to perform alternate community service. But in the draft lottery, he drew No. 330, placing him so far away from the possibility of being sent to Vietnam that the need for official objector status was gone.

But even with the fear of the draft removed, Kahler could not ignore his disgust with the war itself. He could not stay out of the protests.

Orders to break any outdoor assembly, whether peaceful or not, have been given, as a result of Governor Rhodes' declaration of a state of emergency. Tear gas was used tonight to disperse a crowd of approximately 500, assembling in violation of those orders.

While tensions escalated on campus that Sunday, Kahler grabbed his camera and started shooting photographs of the ROTC building, the Guard troops and armored personnel carriers. He ended up at the Student Union in Oscar Ritchie Hall on Sunday evening, where a small group of students was gathering to go to the house of university President Robert White, "to see what he had to say about this whole situation."

The students were moving toward White's house when they were tear-gassed. "I didn't think we were doing anything to get tear-gassed, but we were," Kahler said. "I didn't know about Gov. Rhodes' speech that morning . . . I didn't know that he basically did everything but declare martial law, and he gave the National Guard carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to break up any gathering of students, whether it be 10 students or 4,000 students."

By order of the governor, the National Guard will remain in the Kent community and campus until its leadership decides their departure is safe. Events have taken those decisions out of university hands.

After a quick trip to his room in Wright Hall to wash his face, Kahler headed back out to a gathering on front campus near Rockwell Hall, where Mayor LeRoy Satrom and President White were rumored to appear. Helicopters, guardsmen and tear gas again sent the students running.

He spent the rest of the night in his dorm room, adhering to the curfew and watching the activity outside. "I remember looking out the windows, watching the National Guard troops marching in their formations, driving around in their jeeps and armored personnel carriers and helicopters flying over the dormitories. Everytime some brave student would try to get back to his dorm or go out of the dorm, students would cheer for him, and soon the National Guard would snatch him up, and the students would boo."

Rumors of martial law and of students being bayonetted or run over by personnel carriers were flying that evening. Kahler said the students waited for answers from the university, but they never came.

Kent State University has been disastrously hurt. The hopes of all on campus have been placed in jeopardy, and whether or not any part of that loss can be retrieved depends upon immediate, responsible actions from all quarters of the university community. We must show to the nation that Kent State University has much more to it than the ugliness it has seen in our midst.

Kahler woke up on Monday May 4 believing the chaos on campus was about to end. He skipped his 7:45 class, grabbed brunch at the Tri-Towers cafeteria and walked to the commons to attend a demonstration, where he "got a little bored. I mean, I didn't really understand what everybody was talking about. There were some people talking about socialism and Leninism and Marxism and all these -ism's that didn't make any sense to me, being a little farm boy."

Soon, the National Guard moved in, read the Riot Act ("yes, there really is a Riot Act") and told the crowd to evacuate the area. Screams and boos answered that order, and "a few students threw stones," Kahler said. "Notice I said stones - not rocks, bricks or bags of feces." After a second warning, tear gas was sent in again, and the students ran up the hill by Taylor Hall.

I think that we're up against the strongest well-trained militant revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America . . . We will take all necessary, I repeat, all necessary action to maintain order.