Former student activist Roseann Canfora remembers ducking behind a car to avoid being shot May 4, 1970, as students on the campus of Kent State University who were protesting the Vietnam War were fired on by members of the Ohio National Guard. Four students were killed.

Ms. Canfora was a sophomore and a member of Students for a Democratic Society during the Kent State shooting.

She remembers breaking windows and spray-painting anti-war slogans at police and military buildings on and near campus during the weekend leading up to the shooting, but looking back, she said she does not regret her actions.

"I admit to throwing rocks through a draft board window," she said. "I remember thinking, 'I'm willing to go to jail if it draws attention to the fact I don't want my brothers going to war. I don't want my friends going to die for an unjust cause.' "

But more than 38 years later, Ms. Canfora, now 58, has led a respected teaching career, presently working as journalism professor at Kent State while also teaching at Aurora High School in Aurora, Ohio.

Ms. Canfora is not a neighbor and does not know Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama. That's probably a good thing for her. If she did, her name could be bandied about on national news shows and used by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee John McCain as an example of the radical company Mr. Obama keeps.

GOP political ads for months have attacked Mr. Obama for knowing Chicagoan Bill Ayers, a 1970s anti-war radical and member of the Weather Underground who is now a college professor living in Mr. Obama's neighborhood.

But Ms. Canfora and other former war protesters say their radical days years ago have not stopped them from being mainstream citizens today.

She said her experiences during the anti-war movement helped shape who she is today.

"Do I regret who I was then? Not in any way, shape, or form," she said. "Looking back at all of those times where I faced losing my freedom, my reputation, that is a very important part of my resume of who I am today. I feel proud to have been part of a generation of activists that fought for an end to an unjust war. To negate that part of my life is to negate who I am today."

Ms. Canfora said she vividly remembers the May 4 shootings. She said bullets whizzed by that day and after it was all over, four students were dead. Many more were wounded, including her brother, Allan Canfora, who eventually recovered.

Former Kent State student activist Ken Hammond, who is now a professor of East Asian history at New Mexico State University, was also a witness to the May 4, 1970, shooting.

He and Ms. Canfora were among 25 Kent State protesters indicted in October 1970 on rioting charges related to the shooting.

But shortly after being wounded in the shooting, Mr. Hammond fled the campus and eventually the state, fearing someone in the U.S. government would target him and other activists.

Unlike Ms. Canfora, Mr. Hammond did not immediately return to Ohio to face charges after his indictment. Fortunately for him, almost all charges against the 25 people -- later called the Kent 25 -- indicted for their involvement in the May 4, 1970, protest were dropped about a year later.

After his exoneration Mr. Hammond did not return to Kent State to finish his degree and his life became a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. In 1980, he lost his wife and his right leg in an auto accident. He won a million dollar settlement from the car's manufacturer and went on to get a doctorate at Harvard University in East Asian languages. He's now at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Some would say Mr. Hammond's views are as radical now as they have ever been.

"I don't think most of us who went through that now want to say we were just young and foolish," he said. "We certainly were young and foolish, but I don't think that changes what we did and what we should've done."

But Jeffrey Brown, head of the department of history at New Mexico State University, said despite his past, Mr. Hammond is a well-respected professor at the university and considered in expert on issues related to China.

Former Kent State student activist Carol Mirman said the conservative culture in states such as Ohio prevents some people from understanding how people such as herself could go on to live successful lives.

Ms. Mirman, also a May 4, 1970, protester, is one of the most famous of the Kent 25. She was shown in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of slain Kent State student Jeremy Miller, who she remembers seeing laying in front of her in a pool of blood after she ran from the gunfire.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," she said. "It was shock essentially. I touched him. I realized he couldn't live with all that blood running out of his head. I had a feeling I didn't want him to be alone."

Ms. Mirman was an art student at Kent State when the shooting occurred. After she was indicted, she did not return to the university for two years, but eventually finished her degree and moved to San Francisco.

It was there that she used her artistic talents to draw protest posters with radical groups, such as the Black Panthers, speaking out against not only the Vietnam War, but also oppression of women and minorities.

Twenty-five years later, she returned to Ohio to study art therapy and now, at age 60, she's an art therapist for the Cleveland area's Hospice and Palliative Care Partners of Ohio, an agency of the Visiting Nurse Association.

Ms. Mirman never married or had children, but said she uses art therapy to help elderly and terminally ill patients and their loved ones cope with death, bringing joy to those living out their final days.

She said it is no coincidence she chose this as a profession.

Her experience years ago at Kent State caused her extreme emotional trauma and she said art helped her cope.

She, like most former activists, has no regrets about her views, many of which she still maintains today.

"Why would I regret demonstrating for what I believe in," she said. "I stand up. When I am so moved I will stand, period."