On this day 50 years ago, 4 anti-Vietnam war radicals filled a van with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to bomb the Army Math Research Center at UW-Madison’s Sterling Hall. The bomb killed student Robert Fassnacht and injured three others.#UWMadison #uwmadarchives #sterlinghall50 pic.twitter.com/X90bxIfrL7
— UW-Madison Archives (@UWMadArchives) August 24, 2020
Today we mark 50 years since the Sterling Hall bombing by lifting up the memory of physics researcher Robert Fassnacht and extending our sympathy to his family.
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) August 24, 2020
Join us as we recount the emotional ramifications of the bombing through alumni memories. https://t.co/Owu8N6etNQ
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56 comments:
So its a celebration day for Progressives?? Is Bill Ayers there to celebrate with you?? He still claims HE didn't do enough....
50 years ago, the Left had a somewhat noble cause -- stopping the Vietnam War. The Democrat President (LBJ) amped it up; the Republican President (Tricky Dick) prolonged it, using it as a bargaining chip to negotiate peace with the Chicoms.
And, there was a draft, so young males had to fight and possibly die.
So, they bombed a few buildings in the US and killed a few innocent people. Thanks Bill Ayers!
Today, the Dems are trying to destroy the country, because they don't like Trump.
Seems kinda small.
Weird that this wasn't described, back then, as part of a "mostly peaceful" protest.
Journalistic standards sure have improved since those bad old days.
Robert Fassnacht was not a student; he already had a Ph.D. In physics and was doing postdoctoral research. It has always stood in my mind as a black mark against the state of Wisconsin that no one served more than a mere seven years for the murder. Tells you what Wisconsinites really think of Ph. D. scientists, when there are people serving longer terms than that for possession of a couple grams of marijuana.
The death throes of the Left are painful to watch, and have been ongoing my entire life.
May their vile ideology of collectivism, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism finally be dead, dead, dead.
Or you could have been my dad and volunteer to kill commies.
because commies need killing. in every country, in every land.
It's not uncommon to decide on violence first, then to come up with a reason.
Funny how this doesn't get nearly as much remembrance as the Kent State incident.
Damn I hated this shit. I put off going back to college because of it. I envy older boomers who were able to get through before it got this bad.
Still hate it. Reactionary, I am.
I looked it up...it was a 2,000-pound bomb. It's a good thing those assholes didn't know how to make an effective bomb because that would have leveled the entire campus.
Of the four perpetrators, one served 7 years, two served 3 years, and one escaped to Canada never to be seen since. There was a getaway car driver (a girlfriend) that I couldn't find info about.
The light sentences are shocking...a research student was murdered. These anarchist assholes should have been executed the day after their guilty verdict was announced.
This is how you get more anarchy and murder...this country is too fucking soft.
Dismantling the infrastructure of war is #valid
/s
Didn't know about this incident of Leftist murder. Was this before or after Kent State, which we all learned about in school?
That will not be the last major bomb by the left.
This was happening in Wisconsin last night.
"Or you could have been my dad and volunteer to kill commies."
Our next-door neighbor growing up was a police captain. Hard-nosed, midwest, crewcut kind of guy. Too old for Vietnam but I think he was a Korean war vet. He was a badass and not to be trifled with.
One time I heard him talking to my dad during the time of all the Vietnam war riots. He said the best part of his job was 'beating up all the hippies.'
Wonder how long it will be before "On this day 50 years ago, 4 anti-Vietnam war radicals " tweet gets changed to read "On this day 50 years ago, 4 antifascist heroes"?
Three of the four bombers were captured, tried, and served relatively lenient sentences for murdering Robert Fassnacht due to how the laws were written back then. Still, two of the 3 served time were in prison for 3 years & Karleton Armstrong served 8 years. If Leo Burt, the lone fugitive, turns himself in and the current Dane County D.A. has a say in sentencing, I am enough of a pessimist, based on recent events where lawless acts of destruction appear to be ignored by Madison’s law enforcement system, that Burt would get off lightly. Current law would label this a terrorist act and I am presuming a Federal crime, not a local matter. Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for using the same exact weapon and tactic in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Many of the people behind the bombing at UW, and many other bombings, killings, and just major protests, never left the university. They went back to school, got their degrees, and then became professors. In a few cases, got their degrees, went to jail, then were granted professorships due to their wonderful experiences (blowing up other people) for the cause.
Now decades later they've 'educated' generations of young people who now believe the US is the most evil nation on earth, capitalism, while it has given them pour-over coffee and Netfllix, must be destroyed, and all white people, including themselves, need to be flogged on a regular basis and if possible, should be put away.
I would not say this is a small thing, Bay Area Guy. I would say it marked an era that was the beginning of the Long March through our institutions. And it succeeded. A rather large thing, if anything.
"50 years ago, the Left had a somewhat noble cause -- stopping the Vietnam War"
The US wanted to stop a genocidal, ideological cult taking over a country. There was nothing wrong with the goal. The execution had a lot of flaws.
Antifa: Hold my beer.
My father's office was very close by, I think he was in the next building over.
"Weird that this wasn't described, back then, as part of a "mostly peaceful" protest."
I think NYT style manual says that the proper term is "mostly peaceful riot".
More history rewriting at work. From the lede paragraph: "It was a shocking culmination of yearslong dissent and despair over the Vietnam War."
Despair from whom? Richard Nixon had soundly defeated Humphrey 20 months earlier, and Humphrey himself had overcome the antiwar candidates in the Democratic Party. The country was divided over the war. That word "despair" is loaded and inaccurate. Its purpose is to make the bombing seem a little more rational, rather than the insane pseudo-"revolutionary" act it actually was.
"But she [Fassnacht's widow] provided an extraordinarily gracious statement that referenced Armstrong: 'I would like him to know that I harbor no ill will toward him — and I never did.' "
Just above that quote was the fact that the widow worked for many years just blocks from the site where her husband was blown up. I found that extraordinary, and weird! I certainly don't find her statement above "gracious" and do not consider it commendable in any way. Sorry to be Jacksonian but forgiving murderous evil is God's business, not man's. Ours is to fight it and prevent it.
I presume the progressive campus of UW-Madison observes a moment of silence to remember Leo Burt.
Expect this stuff to make a return if Trump wins.
but but but Timothy McVeigh.
The left wing bombings are always in support of a noble cause. Or so we are told.
Now decades later they've 'educated' generations of young people who now believe the US is the most evil nation on earth, capitalism, while it has given them pour-over coffee and Netfllix, must be destroyed,
Boy, is that true ! I am convinced that much of the cultural disaster we are in today began with student deferments for leftist students who refused to be drafted. If only LBJ had had the guts to ask the left to support the war. Of course, they were his "Great Society" voters. The students that got deferments would have run to Canada and might, if we were lucky, still be there today.
DavidUW said...
Or you could have been my dad and volunteer to kill commies.
because commies need killing. in every country, in every land.
-----------===============
what the The Noble Quran says about how to deal with Jews could be applied to Communists
A mostly peaceful bombing.
Our next-door neighbor growing up was a police captain. Hard-nosed, midwest, crewcut kind of guy. Too old for Vietnam but I think he was a Korean war vet. He was a badass and not to be trifled with.
One time I heard him talking to my dad during the time of all the Vietnam war riots. He said the best part of his job was 'beating up all the hippies.'
....
Hippies might not (all) have needed killing, but more than a few did.
Dad got to be in Hue. Bad enough.
Are they going to have a celebration? /sarc
The absence of the blog's Leftists from this thread is conspicuous.
I met Leo Burt two years before the bombing, after he had finished crew practice for the day. I have never forgotten how at the time he seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary jock.
"Dad got to be in Hue. Bad enough."
No picnic...
Had a long conversation with a retired cop who was stationed at a precinct where the dynamite was spotted. It had not detonated and the bomb squad took care of it. He said everybody's attitude changed markedly because they knew somebody seriously tried to kill them. So, what has changed in those 50 years?
Answering my own previous question, Obama started his political career in Bill Ayer's living room. To that president. Ayers was just somebody down the block. America didn't even care to look any deeper into it.
"The Blast That Changed Everything"
How so? Progs learned nothing. Violence is still their MO. A murderous bunch since 1789.
Did it change anything in Vietnam? Not sure. It was a mess before, a bigger mess for the Vietnamese after.
Maybe Fassnacht was a racist. His name sounds racist. Science is racist. So.
Did the perps to the bombing end up with teaching positions at UW Madison?
Doc K:
"Boy, is that true ! I am convinced that much of the cultural disaster we are in today began with student deferments for leftist students who refused to be drafted."
Yeah, it was great that Nixon ended the Draft. But it mighta been better to draft those spoiled college kids into the Marines.
So ... a mostly peaceful bombing.
I bet it was an eye-opening experience for those that live there when they got up and went to work this morning.
I'll say ! Evers called in the National Guard.
I was15 when this happened. I was very pissed a physics PhD was murdered.
So, what has changed in those 50 years?
Apparently, not much. The protests are in progress.
well that's what the journolist was for,
So a peaceful bombing, then.
Lefties were more subtle back then...
Changed everything? Changed everything? The story only made it off campus for a week. It has been buried for years. Crosby Stills never wrote a song about that one.
I look forward to hearing why this commemoration is white privilege.
My grizzled old Cajun JROTC sergeant said loudly and often that he'd rather have one volunteer in his squad than ten draftees. This was in 1968-1970.
And the strongest influence on me and many others who came to oppose the Vietnam debacle was the VN veterans entering or returning to college. They told us it was fool's errand.
Narr
But the Big Fool said, push on!
I actually knew Bobby Fassnacht. He was my Wife's Cousin. We had just returned from 3+ years in Germany. It was shocking. He might have had his young son with him. He had taken him to work before. Fortunately, not this time.
Our Government treated this more like war than crime. The "POWs" were released early. I am, sadly, convinced we learned little. And not a lot changed as a result of the death of Bobby Fassnacht. In late 1973 I went back to Southeast Asia, flying missions in Cambodia, which failed to defeat the Khmer Rouge. As a result I have frequent chances to apologize to my fellow Lowellians that I failed to end the war on a positive note. One in five here in Lowell are Cambodian Refugees or the descendants thereof. Including two City Councillors, a State Rep and the Chairman of the Republican City Committee. And, last term, a member of the School Committee.
Regards — Cliff
That was enough for J. B. Rosen who decamped for the University of Minnesota the next year. I took a class from him when I returned from Vietnam to resume graduate studies.
I very much appreciate Wisconsin's contribution to my education.
And the "liberals" are like the Bourbons:
They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing
"But she [Fassnacht's widow] provided an extraordinarily gracious statement that referenced Armstrong: 'I would like him to know that I harbor no ill will toward him — and I never did.' "
Well, if the victim's widow doesn't even give a shit, there's little reason for the rest of us to do so.
Wisconsinites are a strange bunch. Advocates for their own demise.
To Bunkypotatohead.
I think that mischaracterizes Bobby Fassnacht's widow. She left the country for a while. The ability to forgive is not the same as not caring, not regretting. I am not in a place to speak for her, but I think it takes some courage to pick up the pieces and forgive.
Right now our nation is locked in an all around condemnation of the other. We need more listening and forgiving. The other side may never change, but we need to leave space for changes of heart, or at least deescalation of rhetoric and actions. Less backing the other guy into the corner.
Yes, this is a very sad memory, but we need to have hope for our American Experiment.
Regards — Cliff
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