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Kent, Ohio - The shooting deaths 38 years ago of four Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard need to be seen as a gift, ‘a lesson’ to the entire United States, a former United Nations weapons inspector said yesterday.

The retired Marine is a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and a critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Ritter said whatever their feelings about the Iraq war, people should never denigrate the service provided by the Americans fighting there because they are willing to die for us.

“Have we done everything we can to ensure the sacrifice that they are prepared to make is in a cause worthy of the sacrifice?” Ritter said. “And I will tell you, no, we have not.”

The rights of American freedom of speech and assembly were trampled ‘on this very spot,’ shortly after students buried a copy of the U.S. Constitution near where the memorial stands to protest their government’s actions, Ritter said.

Those protesters were defending the Constitution, he said.