"And I was in that line looking right across at students who were, some of them, throwing rocks at us, and chanting and yelling things about the government's involvement in Vietnam," he says.

Caliguri says the patrollers seemed frustrated by their seeming inability to quiet the crowds.

"We just stood our ground, and there were remarks from some superiors later that were absolutely crazy at the time," he says.

"You know, I had a shotgun in my hand, and when they were throwing the rocks, I recall a sergeant, who's now retired, saying to me, 'Shoot the sons of bitches.' And I said to myself, 'There's no way I'm shooting anybody,"' Caliguri says. "And the shotgun stayed right there. I don't think he meant it."

"I think it was that sort of a thing when the rocks were coming our way and all that stuff," he says.

In addition to throwing rocks and other objects, Caliguri remembers, the rioters were yelling.

"Pigs was the popular term then," he says. [They were] yelling pigs this or pigs that. It didn't seem to affect anybody. It certainly didn't affect me."

Caliguri's unit never moved from its position.

Neither Doherty nor Caliguri was present at the time of the takeover--their shifts ended at 1 a.m.--but Doherty says he heard later from the Cambridge police that the crowd control efforts had been successful overall.

Other than that, he says, "I don't know what happened. That was the end of it. I remember the protestors were taken away, put in buses, and I was told they were arraigned in Cambridge, but I never found out what the outcome was."

Looking Back

Caliguri says at the time he did not question his assignment to maintain order amidst the rowdy crowd, despite the personal relevance of Vietnam to him.

"I [was] a younger, unsophisticated individual at the time when I went to Vietnam.I never asked why," he continues.

"But when I began to compare why [the riot] washappening, it just gave me a different outlookdown the road. I began to think, should we havebeen [in Vietnam]? Why is there this view aboutwhy we shouldn't have been there?" he said.

About the rioting and the officers'instructions to quiet the protestors, Caligurisays, "I don't really think you're giving it a lotof thought [at the time]. You just think that theysent you over there to keep order mostimmediately."

He adds, "But I can tell you that reflectingupon it afterwards, when I came home."