This may be one of the weirdest Vietnam era events youâve never heard of.
On May 8, 1970, just five days after the Kent State University massacre, several hundred anti-war protesters (most of them high school and college students) planned to hold a memorial at Broad and Wall Streets, New York City. A counter demonstration of support for Richard Nixonâs policies in Vietnam was kicked off by Peter J. Brennan an old labor leader in New York who supported the war. The counter demonstrators were primarily construction workers who happened to be building the world trade center. According to the New York times, One of the construction workers said that not only were the workmen organized but that also in at least one case they were offered a monetary bonus by their contractor-employers if they would take time off from their work to "break some heads."