If you were there I don't have to describe it, if you were to young or not there you have perhaps heard the stories and I don't need to repeat them. If you heard it was full of nudity, public sex, and drugs-you heard right. But there is another story you might not have heard:
The local National Guard unit and those units in the surrounding area as far away as Kansas City were put on duty that weekend. We went about our business as usual. The Adjutant General of the state of Missouri visited our unit and went on a fact finding mission to the festival. He wore civilian clothes and without a huge entourage.
About 1 a.m. Sunday morning I received a phone call from my commanding officer who told me to report to the armory immediately and to ware civilian clothes. The Chief of Staff of the Army National Guard got us all together, about 100 of us, and told us that there was one drug overdose case every five minutes being taken to the the Bothwell emergency room. The concern was that there were many more that were not making it to Bothwell and needed assistance. "You are on a life saving mission, you are not there to enforce laws. You have about 10% hard core out there but the remaining 90% are just kids raising hell and having fun in their mind."
A dawn we all boarded army vehicles, given a Security T-shirt, and given sectors to patrol and a radio if help was needed to evacuate some one from the grounds. A make shift hospital was set up near the site of the fair administration building manned by army doctors and nurses flown in from a Kansas City armory.
About half way through the day I received a call that my wife had called the armory, that she needed me and I was to come home immediately. I was whisked off by a highway patro car, found my wife in labor. I took my wife to the hospital where she gave birth to our first daughter. She asked me if I was going back to the fair grounds and I said no, they can manage without me.
For the most part the Ozark Music Festival was handled just fine. I don't know if any deaths occurred or not, it has been a long time ago and far, far, away it seems.
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