Comments on: What Does Kennedy Death Mean To You?

By: Frank Lundburg

Frank Lundburg — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:51:01 +0000

I was attending school at George Washington University and working part time as an elevator operator under the patronage of Speaker John W. McCormack in the U.S. Capitol Building. I was at work the afternoon of November 22, 1963 about 30 feet from the entrance to the Speaker’s east front capitol office when I learned the President was killed. The enormity, power and sadness of the event and my experience being in that building at that moment and throughout the next days and year are forever part of me.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 23:47:41 +0000

I was 6, watching TV at my great grandmother’s house. Everyone was crying and just couldn’t believe it. My grandmother was also murdered earlier that same year (shot in the head and chest)and I wondered why we didn’t have a funeral like that for her.

By: Anonyvox

Anonyvox — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 22:46:16 +0000

I was born 9 years after he was killed. I have been to the museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, which is probably the most incredible, visceral experience I’ve ever had to an interpretive display anywhere. You wind through the exhibits starting with his family life, then the elections and his presidency, and then things start to slow down and his last day starts to take up all of the space. Just as you are reading and listening to the parts of the shots being fired, you step out of the exhibits and right in front of you is the window that Oswald stood at, boxes stacked up as they were when he rested his rifle on them and shot Kennedy.

It gives me goose bumps just to write about it. You feel like you would be able to jump ahead, grab Oswald’s arm and stop him…except for the fact that it happened so long ago. The only thing that separates you is time. It is just incredible.

By: Clancy

Clancy — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:43:44 +0000

I won’t pretend that Kennedy’s death had any impact on my life, but I am sure it did. I was not born till 10 years later and much had changed by that time, some thanks to him. But I do remember other events like this and my whereabouts.

By: Muck Raker

Muck Raker — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:10:39 +0000

Attending a radio repair school at Ft. Benning, GA courtesy of the U.S. Army.

They issued weapons and assembled us in formation on the parade grounds of the quartels. We were there for hours. There was talk of issuing live ammunition. Many thought we were going to war.

When the formations were dismissed, we spent the next few days watching ensuing events on a small B&W TV in the barracks.

A sergeant from the Turkish army helped ease the pain with something called Raki. While clear in the bottle, it became cloudy when added to ice and water. Tasted a bit like licorice.

By: erico49

erico49 — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:55:20 +0000

Stephen King wrote a great book on a guy who goes back in time to stop the assassination and all that resulted. It’s called “11/22/63.”

By: Flyhead

Flyhead — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:17:17 +0000

The really notable thing about the death Of President Kennedy is most people remember exactly where they were when it happened. I was a junior in high school and was playing basketball in a PE class.

I can only wonder if the Vietnam war would have escalated under Kennedy like it did under Johnson. Another war of choice that cost dearly in lives and treasure.

By: Goobs222

Goobs222 — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:35:40 +0000

Was in Modern Problems class in high school when the intercom began carrying the radio broadcast. I’ve always looked back on the assassination as the day that the course of America changed (not for the positive). Perhaps Vietnam that followed would have been the same, but somehow I doubt it. Perhaps the positive things LBJ pushed through might never have happened, however. Who knows.

By: bikeboy

bikeboy — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:48:03 +0000

I was a 10-year-old kid, sitting in the lunch room at Roosevelt Elementary, right here in Boise. The tinny PA speaker suddenly crackled to life… that never happened after morning announcements, so everybody knew something unusual was going on. (The speaker box was painted light blue, the same color as the wall – I can remember it like it was yesterday.)

I’m guessing that Mr. Marshall, the principal, had a table radio on, with the PA microphone pointed at it. What emerged from the speaker was garbled and distorted… but eventually we came to understand that our president had been shot.

It snowed that afternoon in Boise. And after school I went to my friend Art’s house for a couple hours.

I can remember the nonstop TV coverage of the aftermath. (B&W, at least in my household.) It was probably my rude introduction to “current events.” And nothing in current events had such a visceral and life-changing impact on me again, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when I awoke to news that a plane had flown into one of the WTC towers.

(I’m sorry that Diane was surrounded by “racist idiots calling themselves christians.” At the time, Boise was probably 95% Caucasian, but I certainly didn’t feel like I was surrounded by racist idiots! And based on the “retrospectives” they’ve been showing over the past couple weeks, the “race issue” was as sensitive for Kennedy as it was for any politician of the day… how to walk the tightrope between improving race relations without offending the “racist idiots” and losing their votes.)

By: Grumpy ole guy

Grumpy ole guy — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:56:40 +0000

I was 23, just beginning to take my place in the “adult world” after college and graduate school. I felt betrayed and devastated. Still do. I was watching when Ruby shot Oswald and all sense of “Law and Order” was lost to and for me, I’ve had little sense that I live in an orderly world since that day. The flower children did more to restore my sense of society than anything else since.