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Immediately after the shootings, many angry students were ready to launch an all-out attack on the National Guard. Many faculty members, led by geology professor and faculty marshal Glenn Frank, pleaded with the students to leave the Commons and to not give in to violent escalation, saying:
"I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I am begging you right now. If you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in, and it can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this...!"[28] After 20 minutes of speaking, the students left the Commons, as ambulance personnel tended to the wounded, and the Guard left the area. Professor Frank's son, also present that day, said "He absolutely saved my life and hundreds of others".[29]

So what if the angry students were not stopped, and they did charge the guardsmen? What effect would a large death toll have as opposed to a small one? Would it mean vast public outrage? Yes, but it did IOTL too. Would it mean immediate end to the Vietnam war? Unlikely. Could it possibly spiral into a civil war, or at the very least prolonged gang warfare against the Guard?
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