were you alive when President Kennedy was shot?

Question

If so, what do you remember about it? Were you in school? How old were you? Did you cry? Tell me what you remember about it...

Answer 1

My father had dinner with Bobby Kennedy and he told me about the dinner and how fine a man he was.how he was after the mafia.and my father liked that. and when they let out school they did nt tell us why, but the smart butt crossing guard said he was dead and i cried on the way home some.and it was a certainly a somber time,South Carolina,is where i am from. I was nine.Dad said the C.I.A. and the mafia had something to do with his death.It was so sad at the time,Its still sad.i remember mother saying how brave the family was, and how she felt so sorry for them all, what there going thru,The country mourned
This would today be a better country if he had only lived, God Bless You President Kennedy
and God Bless you Bobby Kennedy .may you both rest in Peace

Answer 2

Yes, I was alive then. I was working in a manufacturing company in Lansing, Michigan. We all heard about it at work and when our shift ended I went home to my wife and two children and we watched events unfold together. Although I was young at the time I was also alive when President Roosevelt died and I remember the stunned attitudes of the adults, but didn’t really appreciate what had happened. Now it had happened again and I fully understood the impact.

Many my age had been influenced by John Kennedy with a spirit wanting to do something to improve the country. And then that focus was abruptly ended. I can remember a television program with several newsmen on it talking about what had happened (it just seems that it was the Johnny Carson show). Sandy Van Oaker was a young news person then and had been a supported of Kennedy’s. At one point he said something to the effect of, “with things like this happening there is no use being involved any more.” It was the emotion of the moment speaking, but many off us felt similarly. But people went on and did those things that had to be done.

Time and age gives one a more realistic perspective of that time. A greater understanding of history also helps. While Kennedy was a flame that drew people to his cause, just think of the people who had just gone through a civil war and then President Lincoln was killed. That war had cost so many lives on both sides that there was hardly a family in America that hadn’t been touched. No matter what side an individual had been on, to have a leader killed in such a cowardly manner had to impacted everyone.

The other day there was a television program which was talking about Kennedy and it showed his funeral procession. The riderless horse, the silence of troops marching to a drum, little John John standing there and imitating the troops around him by saluting as his father went by. Even now those memories hurt, but at the time it was devastating.

As others here have stated, no matter whether one likes or dislikes President, politcal debate should never include the bitter words which can drive some lunitic to do what Oswald did. That is why today I am often disappoint at the mean, evil words applied to poloticians.

Answer 3

It was November 23, 1963, I think. I was in the 2nd grade, at school, in fact, when the principal came in and had a word with my teacher in the hall. When she got back she was in tears. We were told what happened and then told that we should go home for the day.

I didn't cry. It was really abstract to me. For all I knew, it happened every so often. I do remember thinking it must be pretty serious as all the television stations were broadcasting nothing but assassination coverage for days. Things were pretty quiet around my granfather's house - where I stayed until my parents got off work - even with my teenage uncle and 2 aunts.

It was what everyone wasn't saying. There may have been speculation on the TV as far as whether it was the start of something even more diabolical, like a Coup or something.

Then I remember seeing Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot by Jack Ruby. Then the funeral - this is where I may have felt something as the look on Jackie Kennedy's face was sad but somehow she was holding herself up. Then, with the video of John Jr. and Caroline, you could understand it was like a "mom" thing, maybe.

Being seven and a-half there really much to think about after seeing the Eternal Flame lit and everyone trying to get on with life.

But in 1968 the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy really made an impression on me. To me it was a lesson in power politics.

Wow, there are a few of us here who are '50's-kids. Far Out.

Answer 4

I was 16 years old, and a senior in high school at the time. The first we (the student body) heard about it was at lunch period when an announcement was made, and classes were dismissed for the rest of the day. Between Nov. 22, 1963, and the time his body was moved to Arlington National Cemetary we were glued to the television.

The emotions throughout our city (Houston) ran from shock, to anger, to unbeleiving, and even to hatred. JFK spent his list night in Houston and it was really hard for us to beleive something like this could occur in Texas.

I was taking AJROTC, and my unit was picked to form a 55-man honor guard when he arrived at the Houston airport on Nov. 21st. That was an event that placed us in close proximity to the most powerful man on earth, awe-inspiring to say the least.

It also happend at the time I was nearing the draft age. We had been studying some of the history of the Far East (Viet Nam in particular) and we knew for instance that the U. S. had placed a limited number of "advisors" there on the orders of Kennedy. We will never know how he would have handled that, but we do know that Johnson didn't do very much better in Viet Nam than Dubwa is doing in Iraq.

Answer 5

Yes, I was, and I was in grammar school at the time. WE were listening to a radio program called"I am an American", it was a series about great Americans and their lives. All of a sudden someone came rushing in through the classroom door and said, that President Kennedy was shop. We were all shocked, and speechless, and were paralyzed with fear and anxiety, and started crying. Thinking back now, I think that was the moment that changed our lives forever, and since then we have had so many wars, killings, assassination attempts, violations against our country that began the unraveling of the security we thought we had in this country.

Answer 6

I was 4 1/2...it is one of my earliest memories someone called my mom and she turned the TV on and we watched the local news in LA which I later found out was one of the first reports. Since I was so young I didn't really understand it completely...I just remember all of the adults being very upset and lots of people coming over...all of the neighbors and my aunt...like a wake. Then when the funeral was on TV all of the adults watched intently and the kids had to be quiet. I sat right in front of the TV and watched and I remember feeling very sad and kind of scared even though I didn't know why...I could just tell the country, at least my surroundings, felt different somehow.

Answer 7

I had just graduated high school that year and was working my first job. I went to the bathroom after lunch and came out and my boyfriend said, "They just shot President Kennedy." I glared at him and said, "I do not think that is a funny joke!"
"No!" he said, "It is not a joke." He had the radio on and they were announcing it. Everyone just went numb. So unbelievable. People were just walking out of stores in a daze...even the clerks. Most of the businesses in the small town in Texas where I lived closed and everyone went home. They did not tell us for a long time (maybe 2 hours) that he died. I think they were trying to get the government in order and get Johnson sworn in as President. As for a few hours, we were without a President. And just as the horror of 911, we stayed glued to the TV for the next few days...Then we saw Jack Ruby kill Oswald as it happened. The events were too hard to deal with and the sadness of watching John John Kennedy and Caroline saying goodbye to their father was so hard to face. Yes, we cried.

Answer 8

I was in my freshman year of college. I had come from a conservative Republican background and then went away to school in a liberal Democratic college environment.

I had been sitting with some friends and talking about the different opinions of President Kennedy that people had. It had never occurred to any of them that everybody didn't love Kennedy. I told them I knew people who hated him and that I knew about people who hated him so much that it would not surprise me if he ended up like Lincoln.

They were somewhat surprised at the idea, but there was talk around at the time that all the US presidents elected in a year divisible by twenty had died in office.

It was only an hour or so after that conversation that I was walking downstairs to have coffee when one of my friends came up to me crying, with a look of terrible shock, and she said, "You were right. Somebody just killed President Kennedy."

I'll never forget the terrible, sick feeling. I certainly didn't want to be "right" about something like that. It was awful to see what happened to the country after that. Things changed overnight, and we all became constantly aware of "security," when before that we had taken our safety and the safety of our leaders somewhat for granted.

There have been presidents I haven't liked since then, but no matter how strongly I have felt about disagreeing with them, I don't like seeing the President of the United States attacked with words and I would do anything to protect any president from physical attack. It bothers me to think that our president isn't safe. In some sense he stands for us, and if he isn't safe, neither are any of us.

Answer 9

I was 7 years old. I remember being in the living room of our house and my mother was watching the television. It was really weird because she was so upset.

I don't think I really understood then. but the news was on almost all the time and the reporters were so serious. Later on I rememer the flight by LBJ back to Washington DC, and his assumption of the presidency.

I remember the funeral vividly with the caisson being pulled by horses through Washington DC and then John-John's salute at the gravesite.

I also remember the lighting of the "Eternal Flame" and the reporters saying that it would never go out.

Answer 10

It was my first year of teaching. The last period of the day had just commenced,and during the change of classes, a student, Steven Collins Foster, said to me that "The President was dying". I said "Do not be silly- he is not even ill. He is campaigning in Texas". The thought of assassination seemed so foreign to most of us. John F Kennedy had been the victor in the first election I could vote in, and I had voted for him. A few minutes into the last lesson, the librarian entered the room in tears, and whispered to me, "He is gone." Yes I cried that day as did many of my students and colleagues. What a terrible tragedy.