John Kennedy Shot In Dallas

I was at NAS North Island, VP-48 Avionics Shop working on a AQA-1 when the news came that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. He was my first Commander in Chief and I was devastated. A day I will never forget..........
 
10th grade at Hattiesburg High School. He wasn't very popular around here then but by today's standards he would probably be considered a conservative. Them Kennedy boys did know how to have fun though.
 
I was across the dateline.
The small island had a club and my brother and I used to go there and play pool on Saturdays. We were working on rotation with the place all to ourselves.

The club guy had the hood of the juke box up so he could play records without putting in change. There was no TV and a sketchy radio station on the island, so no news.

My brother and I walked home after a while. There was no lunch and my mom and dad and some other adults were just sitting in our living room.

"Hey," I said, "how come there's no lunch?"

And then they told us the news.
 
I was a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school. We were between classes when the principal came over the PA with the announcement. Most students were in the hallways and a silence like in a funeral home came over the school. Teachers, students, and the high school staff were absolutely stunned. There were a lot of tears shed. I was headed for my Junior ROTC class, and when we got there, the enlisted instructors and the professor of military science, a RA Major, had us stay quiet the entire hour. No one had to be reminded. One MSGT, a Korean veteran wept openly, as did a lot of us.

We were in awe of the President, and we couldn't imagine, that in 1962, someone could have killed the President of the United States. I can still remember that the ROTC custodian, a retired MSGT, came up with black crepe and fit it on the President's picture, and the colors were draped in the same black crepe streamers.

I was on the ROTC drill team, and the platoon guidon. Our NCOIC came up with an appropriate honor by the drill team, and we presented it at the halftime of the Thanksgiving Day football game at halftime, in front of 20,000 people. The band even used the muffled drums, and we marched to the same cadence as the President's caisson.

There are some things that are forever etched in your mind. That week remains as vivid as it did forty-nine years ago.
 
Going back to school from lunch. 9th grade. Hard to believe that one nut case with a mail order rifle could take Camelot from us. I would say the most important day of my life. When Bobby was shot I was standing in line getting my bedding at the Treasure Island Navy base. A baseball game was on the TV and the news broke in. When JFK was shot I heard it on a car radio. We stayed in school that day but listened to the radio over the PA system tor the rest of the day. Still makes me sad every Nov 22nd

Ted
 
It was my sophomore year in HS and I was in Biology Lab when the PA sudenly came on announcing the shooting. Next period was a Football PEP Rally, the Principal interupted the rally to announce that the President had been gravely wounded. The Principal then allowed the rally to continue, he said that if he retook the stage we'd know that the worst had happened. A few moments later he reappeared onstage to announce President Kennedy's death. The Pep Rally was dismissed and we were sent to our next period class while the administrators decided what to do. Before long the PA came on announcing that school was being dismissed for the day. On the east coast there was strong suspicion that the Russians had assasinated Kennedy and that some dire consequences were imminant. It was a very trying time for a young teenager who had just recently lived thru the Cuban Missle Crisis.
 
In Germany..

My Father had taken me with him on a hunting trip. I had gone to bed and was awakened to the news. The hunting trip was cancelled and the most impressive thing I remember was listening to the radio of the funeral procession and seeing my father crying. Never before and never since. I think he never fully assimilated how flawed his perception of JFK and his whole "tribe" was. The facets of the Kennedy clan that have come to light since then definitely remove them from any "paragons of virtue" list in the history of the United States.

I do find it hard to believe that Oswald could hit anything with that *** Italian rifle
 
I was a senior in college working in the zoology lab when the prof told us. The motivation to dissect whatever vanished. I went to the student union cafe where we talked. I vividly remember one student openly approving of the assasination.

The biggest, toughest, meanest guy on the football team(who was from TN) was devastated and hitch-hiked to the funeral. He had just gotten back from 2 yrs. in the Peace Corps.
 
I was running a punch press in a machine shop. We stopped for 15 min. to listen to the radio, Three days later while he was being put to rest, that punch press double on me and chopped off the tip of my left index finger, very hard to forget that date.
 
Looking back, now I see...

Yes, I remember it very well, and that's why history is so important, you can see what was actually going on before this event, because what happend in the years after it was the result of what was being contrived in this world before it actually took place, and this event punctuated what came before, and what followed, along with, just a few days between them, President Diem's assassination in Saigon: The death of these two leaders, the real beginning of the Viet Nam War. That's what it came to mean to me, and a whole bunch of other folks, whether they know it or believe it or not. It was also the begining of the end of political innocense in this society. I remember the militant denial of the WWII generation-my own parents-when it was even suggested that the Government might have had something to do with this horrible event, or that they might try to cover it up, or that there was a faction or "Second government" that we didn't know about, etc etc. The idea that the USA didn't always wear a white hat was not even to be considdered by the older generation, as oposed to the idea that nobody wore one, including the USA, first and foremost, by the younger generation, what we call baby boomers now. The real beginning of the generation gap? It's all there to look at in almost 50 years of national history, especially the truth that "history has taught us that we have learned nothing from history. Flapjack.
 
amazingflapjack said:
Yes, I remember it very well, and that's why history is so important, you can see what was actually going on before this event, because what happend in the years after it was the result of what was being contrived in this world before it actually took place, and this event punctuated what came before, and what followed, along with, just a few days between them, President Diem's assassination in Saigon: The death of these two leaders, the real beginning of the Viet Nam War. That's what it came to mean to me, and a whole bunch of other folks, whether they know it or believe it or not. It was also the begining of the end of political innocense in this society. I remember the militant denial of the WWII generation-my own parents-when it was even suggested that the Government might have had something to do with this horrible event, or that they might try to cover it up, or that there was a faction or "Second government" that we didn't know about, etc etc. The idea that the USA didn't always wear a white hat was not even to be considdered by the older generation, as oposed to the idea that nobody wore one, including the USA, first and foremost, by the younger generation, what we call baby boomers now. The real beginning of the generation gap? It's all there to look at in almost 50 years of national history, especially the truth that "history has taught us that we have learned nothing from history. Flapjack.
Click to expand...

You may find this an interesting read:

Blount Report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I discusses the annexation of Hawai'i and still hotly debated today. But back on topic. I wasn't even an urge until about a month later. :D
 
Regarding the end of "Camelot", there was a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when Warren. G. Harding died in 1923, then the scandals broke including the allegations that he had a child with his mistress and his reputation went down very quickly.
Yes the world changed very quickly and not for the better. Reconstruction probably would have gone more smoothly if Lincoln had lived, and if McKinley had lived-would we remember TR for anything other than his leadership of the Rough Riders ?
For those of who lived through it and remember it was a national trauma, but yes, for others, it is just history.
 
First grade. Red Bluff Elementary School. Pasadena, TX.
Remember the first hubbub right after lunch when the
teachers were going in and out looking all disturbed..
I guess about an hour later, they announced it on the PA.
I remember I went home after school, and all my usual
cartoons were off the air, replaced by the 1963 version of TV
talking heads.. I was some kind of ticked.. :(
But I watched it all pretty much the next four days or so..
Saw Oswald get shot in the jail too.. I remember the Houston
newspaper put out a big huge picture of Oswald on the morgue slab
with a big gaping hole in his side. They would probably never print
something like that this day and age..
One factoid.. I was born across the street from where Kennedy died.
He was taken to Parkland hospital. I was born at St. Paul's, which
was across the street back then. I think it still may be, but I'm pretty
sure all the buildings they have now are newer and different.
 
I was in Mrs. Smith's second grade class in Yakima, WA. We were sent home early that day. I remember my friend crying as we walked across the playground. For some reason I also remember looking at the ground and noticing the plugs from the aerator laying all over the grass. Funny what you remember as a kid.
 
I was 9, on the school bus getting ready to leave school. I remember hearing it on the radio.

I've been to Dealey Plaza and looked at all angels of this thing. I've looked out the window of the depository, the one next to it anyway, I've been behind the picket fence. I believe it was a conspiracy, probably the mob. The shot that killed him definitely came from behind the picket fence, easy shot. After watching the film, it couldn't have come from anywhere else.
 
I was in the 3rd grade and remembering them patching the news over the loud speakers and my teacher was crying.
 
Remember it well. At Fitzsimmons Armry Hospital - Aurora, Co.
Returning to a training class. Got to the class - instructors told us to report to our barracks and remain there. One MP I knew told me later they were ordered to block entry points and close gates within a half hour of when they got the news. The C.O. said " I don't know what the hexx is going on - President has been shot in Dallas - we are just going to lock it down until we find out." We drew weapons (no ammunition) went back to the barracks and cleaned weapons listening to the radio. I think the armor was very quick thinking and figured it was a good way to get the the M-1's, carbines and .45's cleaned in a hurry. After the funeral we went back to training but the weapons were locked in the barracks and were still there when I left.
I don't know the whole story on the Presidents' assination - we probably will never know it all. But whether you liked him or disliked him he was still the President. I think we as a country lost a lot of confidence in believing our government that day and it will never return.
 
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