Dallas - November 22, 1963
Fifty years ago, Friday November 22, 1963. Where were you?
I was almost 7 weeks into basic training for the Army National Guard at Fort Knox, KY. We were standing in an inspection formation behind the barracks when our Commander came out and talked to our Sargent. He then addressed us with the information about the President being shot in Dallas.
We were immediately dismissed and told to return to the barracks. News was slow filtering in to us from the single TV room, but it wasn't good. I don't recall having close friends to talk with while in basic training and my only recollection is the tremendous distress on the faces of everyone around me for the duration of the period of the funeral.
We had time off to get the complete information and reflect. Of course the next important item of information for us was that our new President and Commander and Chief was Lyndon Baines Johnson. I knew nothing of Johnson at the time except he was JFK's VP.
I was too young to vote in '60 when JFK was elected. I don't know if it was the aura of the Kennedy family, the class and beauty of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, or more likely the whole image of a perfect President and family that enamored me. All I know is that I was proud to be working for the government while he was President. A feeling that would be much less intense later in the '60s near the end of Johnson's Presidency.
JD, still missing JFK and wiping a tear from my eye while typing this here in the BToS.
3 comments:
Elita Sohmer Clayman shared this comment:
I was a young Mom and went down to the laundry room to wash clothes as we had no appliances like that in the apartment. Another lady down there told me she had heard it on the TV. I ran upstairs to tell my husband who was on a day off.
We were shocked. When the funeral was on TV, I was listening to it on the radio driving home in a borrowed car from my husband's employer who had loaned it to us since we had no second car. My little girl only two years old said "Mommie what is going on.?"
I tried to not explain the horrific happenings because she was too young to understand.
That was our day, a sad one for sure.
On Friday, November 22, 1963,I was working as an administrative assistant at the University of Maryland. Going outside for lunch, I saw students crying on the lawn and heard them say, "President Kennedy has been shot!" When I got home,I burst into the house, crying. My mother had candles lit in the dining room. The entire family went to church at St. Mary's in Laurel, where the priest said a Mass for President Kennedy to a packed congregation.
On December 2, 1963, American pop singer Connie Francis recorded a tribute song to JFK entitled "The Summer Of His Years." The opening lyrics:
"A young man rode with his head held high Under the Texas sun And no one guessed that a man so blessed Would perish by the gun, Lord, would perish by the gun. . .
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