It will be a rare American who isn’t reminded of the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination today, unless they’re out in the deer woods.  That’s where my future father-in-law was when it happened, along with his daughter, my future wife, who was helping him drag his whitetail buck home.

I was home from school, sick with mono, and ironically reading a LOOK magazine article about the President and his son, when the first news flash came over the TV.

Those of us sentient then remember where we were when we heard the news.  We’ve lived to see half a century of assorted conspiracy theories.  And, on that day, we saw the birth of the late 20th Century’s fixation on “gun control.”

There will be many memories and many thoughts among you all today.  Feel free to share here.

1 COMMENT

  1. I do remember, and it was also the ‘start’ of the legacy attributed to Kennedy, and that myth perpetuates to this day…

  6. Yes Sir! I just left the Marine Core after four years and it seems like I graduated high school yesterday….then again, to you folks, four years ago was yesterday!

  8. In the Air Force – stationed at Camp O’Donnell, Philippine Islands – in the barracks, sleeping. Buddy woke me up to relay the news. I didn’t believe him at first. Thought he was playing a joke. Who knew? 🙁

  10. I had graduated from college the year before, and I had returned to my alma mater for a football game. I was in my former adviser’s office talking to him, and he got a phone call. He hung up and said to me, “The president’s been shot.” I responded, “The president of what?” Assassination of a US president was the farthest possibility from my mind. It took several minutes for it to sink in.

  11. We have been discussing where we were when we heard about JFK on a web site from my hometown. Everyone alive at the time remembers…differently. It’s funny to see how many remember school being out for a week, or school being held as usual (they attended the same school). I was too young to understand the politics and remember mostly that my favorite TV shows were interrupted. I do remember a lot of talk then and later about LBJ being involved.

    Mas, have you seen the “theory” that a secret service agent accidentally fired a simultaneous shot hitting Kennedy in the head as he was bringing his rifle up from the car when Oswald fired the second shot? This was a new one, for me, that I saw a few days ago. It looked implausible but it surprised me that I hadn’t seen this before. Sorry I can’t attribute any better source than a documentary on Reelz channel.

  12. I was four years home and home with my mother I was alone in my bedroom watching TV when my mother walking in crying and why she cried she said: President Kennedy has been killed. I remember it was sobering my mom crying my dad at work and my brother at school. It was like we were both in a state of shock….

  13. Everyone kept hoping there was a mistake as to who has been killed. It was easy to cry late at night watching the horse pulling the casket,

    Months earlier, I’m afraid it had also been possible to feel real fear in 7th grade science as the teacher said””well’, I hope we’re back tomorror and the Russians back down in Cuba.” Nobody left class feeling too upbeat.

  15. On Friday 22 November 1963 I was a sixteen year old student at Albany Senior High School in Albany, NY.

    With the time zone difference, when President Kennedy was shot, I was in a mechanical arts drafting class with a favorite teacher, a Mr. Weldon.

    IIRC, he suddenly was called from our classroom and when he returned he looked very sad. He halted the class and called us all up closer to him and he told us President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, TX.

    We had no radio or overhead speaker, so updates, like the announcement that President Kennedy was dead, came from word of mouth passed on by school staff who had access to transistor radios etc.

    As I recall, after we were told that President Kennedy was dead, the classes sort of just ended for the day and we walked home, which in my case was a fair distance to 83 Lincoln Avenue. Watching the faces of people as I walked, you could tell this was a significant event. People were clearly listening to transistor radios or car radios. Others were grouped on the street trying to figure out what this meant, who did it and why? Were the Communists involved? Would there be a war?

    Initially it was a scary time… Especially as we all watched television that night… Huntley-Brinkley or Cronkite et al.

    My wife and I have lived in Rye, Colorado for the past eleven years after long careers in the US Army.

    I have many times pondered what impact the Kennedy assassination had on our lives. My later serving as an Army officer in Vietnam and also wondering about the various problems / errors in the Warren Report etc. I still read books about the JFK assassination looking for further answers and explanations so I guess it was true.. It was a significant emotional event for many of us above a certain age on that sad day. And no, as of now I don’t think Oswald was the only one involved in JFK’s assassination. Maybe the dicument release scheduled for 2017 will shed some new light?

  16. I don’t recall it myself, but my mom told me the story of her coming home from the hospital with my 5 day old fat butt in her arms. When she walked in the door of their apartment there was my grandmother, who had immigrated from Italy and barely spoke English, sitting on the couch crying and watching TV.

  17. I was 5-1/2 years old. My 3 year old brother and I were sitting in the car, ready to drive downtown to see the President – something that had been talked about for weeks. We were running late for some reason, and then my mother went into the house to get something she had forgotten. Brother and I sat in the car, and sat in the car and sat in the car. She came out crying- my grandmother had called telling her the President had been shot.

    From North Dallas we drove to my grandmothers big house next to Stephens Park golf course in Oak Cliff avoiding downtown; my mother grimly concentrated. I remember I could tell she was frightened. After arriving at my newly-widowed grandmothers house, we watched TV. There was no watching Icky Twerp and Slam-Bang Theatre for me that day, no Three Stooges or Mighty Mouse cartoons – just dreary, sober talking heads on TV.

    About 3 PM my father arrived, having left his office early. He had with him several loaves of bread and several cartons of eggs plus other groceries.

    I remember watching him unlock my grandfather’s gun closet and remove two shotguns, loading each. He left one on the kitchen table and left to check the unused servants quarters. He walked the entire perimeter of 8 acres before returning to the main house.

    Riots, Russian attacks – I remember but little snippets of grown-up conversation, but I remember the loaded Remington Model 11 on the table with a box of ammo, and my father cradling a Remington Model 31. It was not a happy few days.

  18. Around midday at recess, all the students out on the playground (me included) were called in early. A television on a cart was wheeled in to our 6th grade classroom and turned on without comment. As the TV news coverage began the teacher seemed very sad and when it became evident that the President was shot and reportedly had died, the prettiest girl in our class, Ada, by name, started crying. Then other girls did. A very sad situation. It was the beginning of the realization that there was a bigger world out there outside of my home, school and family…..

    I was only 11 and had no grasp of politics but after school let out it became apparent to me that something very big had happened. Nothing but Walter Cronkite on TV and other black and white talking heads for two weeks nonstop reported anything and everything about the shooting and aftermath. And, of course, being a kid, I was mad because of no cartoons on TV for that two weeks. Redclay7 11/23

  19. I was a 20 year old Marine stationed with the guard detachment for the US Naval Headquarters Europe in London, England. Our guard section had assumed the duty at noon that day and I had been assigned the 12 to 4 watch. We were preparing to assume the midnight to 4 Am watch when the Gunny came in and told us the President had been assassinated. He told us to change out of our dress blues and into utilities and to draw our M-1’s and ammo from the armory. My post was the roving patrol and our normal duties were to make sure all the offices were locked and secure and to check the ID of anyone roaming around. Boy that got old fast as I don’t believe there was an unoccupied office in the whole building which was normally deserted at 2 AM. As I remember that headquarters was on a war footing for 4 or 5 days. When it came out that LHO had been a Marine it didn’t make us too popular in our normal hangouts around London.

  20. Don’t remember that one as it would take me another year to appear on the planet. The historic event I’ll never forget will probably always remain 9/11, that I watched unfold on TV before heading for work both on edge and in a daze, like most people that day.

    Back to JFK there’s been so much smoke over the past decades that I won’t even attempt to get to the bottom of that one. I’m lazily waiting for all documents to be declassified, but still not holding my breath for The Truth.
    All I can say, from personal experience, is this: there’s a lot less conspiracies out there than we imagine. Most of the time, people and agencies fib to cover up professional mistakes and ethical slip-ups, and when THAT is inevitably uncovered in investigations more thorough than they planned, the public thinks it points to a bigger thing than it is.

    Also, while I know that some people with stop at nothing for financial or political gain, I have a hard time buying that, in this country where everyone would kill for a story to sell, it’s possible to have any type of systemic cover-up last more than a few months. If it’s nothing but smoke after several years I tend to think that the discrepancies and lost evidence come from inept, rather than evil, men. When people go “ah-ha!”, I say, “nah, that’s just how things are given human nature” (contaminated samples, flip-flopping witnesses, reports redacted to protect people’s careers, etc.).

  21. Congratulations on the up coming wedding!
    I was in the 4th grade reading class when the principle voice came over the PA
    saying that Kennedy had been shot and that we were to stop what we were doing and pray for him. About 30 minutes later she announced that President Kennedy had died and that school was dismissed.

  22. Mas, you say you were reading an article about JFK when you got the news? My experience was REALLY memorable! I was a 20-year old member of the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA) in Kassel, Germany. I was in the base theater watching PT-109, the story of JFK’s WWII experiences, starring Cliff Robertson as JFK (how’s THAT for wierd) when they turned on the lights and made the announcement! All leaves and passes were cancelled and we were told to remain on base for further instructions. There was LOTS of talk of Russian involvement in the assasination but the guys who monitored the East German communications said the commies were as surprised as we were so we relaxed a bit.
    I never did get to see the end of that movie and still haven’t as I always seem to miss it when it re-runs.

  23. I was active duty Navy on shore duty in San Diego. I had a radio on my desk listening to music while working when the news came on as a breaking news flash.

  24. I too was at home, either sick or playing hookie, I can’t remember which. I would have been 13. Someone called on the phone and said the President and been shot and I asked president of what!

    Mas, you say that the theory of a S.S. agent shooting the President by accident is B.S. I saw the documentary on the Reelz channel too. I liked the part where the bullet that went through Kennedy’s throat and then into Connally was intact and just a little bit deformed. The pathologist said that Kennedy’s head had numerous bullet fragments. In other words a bullet with a thinner jacket and higher velocity. i.e. A different firearm. It was also stated that the S.S. took Kenn

  25. Sorry, the submit button was too close to the stylus. The S.S. had taken Kennedy’s brain because, they said, that Robert Kennedy wanted it? The brain disappeared! If the S.S. had shot Kennedy by accident this is exactly how they would have behaved in a cover up. Since a local museum has the S.S. car that was used that day, I wonder if any gunpowder residue could still be intact?

  26. I was six months old. My Mom says I was in the crib. But since I was born in 1963, and the assassination seems to be the most significant event of that year, I always feel a connection to it. That, plus the fact that we have heard about it almost non-stop for the past fifty years. When I tell people the year of my birth, I usually add, “…the year Kennedy was shot.” Even if I don’t add that, the thought comes up in my mind whenever I hear “1963.” The same thing happens with “1941” and even “1914.” Some things just stick in your mind.

  27. Mas, you said that the S.S. shooting the President by accident was B.S. I was hoping you would give your reasons?

  28. Mas I agree with you in response to Tommy. The theory first proposed by Howard Donahue and Bonar Menninger that the SS guy had an AD is ludicrous. Cops don’t have ADs. Period. End of story.

  30. ‘Ask not what your Country can do for you but what you can do for your Country”. From a Boston kid, who could have gotten a deferment out of WW2 by way of his father, who was an Ambassador no less, to a guy who fought to get out into the shit of the Pacific, in a PT Boat unit that had the odd’s of going home at 7 to 2, against, get’s his boat sunk out from under him, and then goes back for more in the same Unit, to someone who realizes that we are all one Country, and runs on that in the face of the Ayn Rand crowd of ‘me before thee’ nonsense, and then when pushed to the edge of pushing ‘That Button’ with the Russian’s over Cuba, and finds a way out for us all, such character, courage, value’s and vision should we all look for in our Elected Official’s, regardless of position or Party. Mores the pity that we all don’t follow his example of what it means to be American and to lead.

  31. Fellas, if you examine the Menninger book you’ll see they had to fake their diagram to support the theory. The trajectory they draw is not coming straight out of the barrel.

    But, more starkly: if an AR15 rifle had gone off in that car, surrounded by people, someone would have noticed.

  32. If you attend MAG40, you’ll see a video demonstrating exactly HOW oswald pulled it off alone, and how it’s very plausible. It’s a demonstration on how eye witnesses can miss critical things and then automatically fill in the blanks in their heads with what they think must have happened, but didn’t.

    It was just Oswald with three shots: 1 miss, 2 hits, winchester ammo, carcano (sp?) rifle, and standard marine marksmanship.

  33. Jamie, Mas addressed the video in this forum a while back and I found the explanation (Oswald did it) satisfactory. I still want to attend one of the MAG classes when my job allows the time.

    While I don’t see the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman to be in any way improbable, I think people mis-use probability in arguing against an event that has already happened. No matter how improbable and event is, if it happens, probability plays no role. The same goes for Oswald’s motives. We won’t have a completely satisfactory answer since he denied the killing and died before any he could speak further.

  34. My uncle was the motorcycle officer you see at the left rear of presidential limo. He passed away last year. We were close and discussed this historic event on numerous occasions, everything from the moment he knew something was wrong, till their arrival at Parkland, and what took place at the hospital.

    He faintly heard the shots coming from the School Book Depository over the noise of the crowd and vehicles. He recalled the shots as sounding like one of the police motorcycles back-firing ( which was common with the Harley’s) in the distance.

    The shot you folk’s are attributing to the secret service agent would have been fired from a distance of about 10 yards behind my uncle passing within 10 feet of him at supersonic speed. He would surely have heard that shot clearly, but he didn’t.

    I knew each of the motorcycle officers that were in close proximity to the limo when the president was shot and none heard that shot.

    My uncle and one other motorcycle officer had brain matter splattered on their upper body and faces as did the first lady. If that doesn’t qualify them as witnesses to what took place that day, I don’t know what would.

    Many theories about this event have been floated, but this one is probably the most easily debunked.

  35. OK-OK I give up. We will just chalk the assassination up to Oswald and the incompetence of the S.S. in mucking up the investigation and doing too much bar hopping the night before. Not to mention the Dallas police allowing Ruby and others to be allowed into the basement in close contact with Oswald.

  36. Many lessons were learned as that day and the days that followed played out. The way motorcades were conducted at the time were dependent on the wants and the desires of the president’s staff and the president himself, many times overruling the secret service’s advice on security issues. Operating procedures changed drastically afterwards, but the arguments and disagreements between the politicos and those charged with security continue till this day.

    In hindsight, of course many mistakes were made by all involved. The access afforded the press was excessive, but imagine for a moment the outrage and cries of cover-up that would have followed if access were denied.

    There was no clearly defined jurisdictional lines at the time, leading to clashes between the agencies involved. Those clashes manifested themselves at the hospital between secret service and doctors and at police headquarters between FBI and Dallas police.

    New SOP’s and guidelines are in place after this incident that would have prevented some of the chaos of those days. At the time, many of the actions taken were reaction as events unfolded as those involved were flying by the seat of their pants.

  37. Tommy, my thoughts are that he figured that they weren’t able to prove he did it, so he denied doing it. Whether that was smart of him or not, that’s most likely what it was though Jack Ruby certainly kept us from having all the facts explored in public soon after the event, and didn’t give Oswald time to realize the stupidity of trying to play innocent.

    Trying to point out that Oswald trying to protest his innocence when he was so obviously guilty is meaningless. It wasn’t smart to snipe and kill the President either, but he still did that anyway.

    I see nothing that would lead me to believe that there was any other shooter or any other plotter other than Oswald himself. None. All the pieces fit, including his protestation of innocence (classic “Duh, it wasn’t me, your honor, honest!”). He did it. That much is absolutely certain. And it’s just as conclusive that he was the only one involved.

  38. TRANSCRIPT:

    JFK: A Conspiracy Theory
    by James Corbett
    corbettreport.com
    November 22, 2013

    Lee Harvey Oswald was your typical America-hating communist from Louisiana, and like every Russkie-loving pinko from the South he grew up watching American spy dramas, volunteered for a Civilian Air Patrol run by a CIA contract agent and joined the US Marines. Nicknamed Oswaldski for his tendency to speak Russian and spout pro-Soviet propaganda, he was given special training and assigned to one of the most sensitive facilities in the world running the radar for the U2s spying on the Russkies and the ChiComs. After contracting gonorrhea in the line of duty, Oswald was tested for Russian proficiency before being honorably discharged to take care of his mother who wasn�t ill and flew to Europe using money he didn�t have on planes that didn�t exist to arrive at Helsinki, where he stayed at the most luxurious hotel in town before waltzing into the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. While there he kept a detailed log of Soviet facilities, made notes about microdots, and carried a CIA standard-issue Minox camera, before getting bored and returning to the United States on a military jet using money loaned to him from the US Embassy.

    After waltzing back into the United States after supposedly defecting to the enemy at the height of the Cold War he settled back in New Orleans where he appeared in radio and TV interviews, got into fistfights on the street and handed out leaflets from a pro-Castro Cuban group sharing office space with an ex-FBI agent involved in government-sponsored anti-Castro Cuban groups. Moving to Texas and befriending a millionaire Russian oil man who helped get him a job at the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald made sure to let his murderous intent be known by attempting to assassinate a right-wing general in the area thus potentially jeopardizing any plot to kill the President and sent vanity photos of himself posing with his rifle to his close friends.

    Luckily, on the morning of November 22nd, Lee Harvey Oswald went to work in the School Book Depository where the President just happened to be driving by. After somehow getting the secret service to stand down before entering Dealey Plaza, Oswald set up a makeshift sniper�s nest he got off three shots in six seconds leaving four bullets without leaving any nitrate on his cheek (a feat that has never been duplicated), including one bullet that managed to cause seven entry/exit wounds (a feat that has never been duplicated) penetrating 15 inches of tissue, 4 inches of rib and a radius bone to come out in almost perfect condition on a stretcher in the hospital while no one was looking. He then ran downstairs and got himself a Coke from the vending machine within seconds of the assassination before heading home, grabbing his things, walking down the street, shooting a police officer, ducking into a movie theatre and waiting to be arrested. After jumping up and pulling his gun on the police officers who swarmed the theatre, he was led out the front door (or the back) and taken into police custody. There he was not charged with the murder of the president, and, like any America-hating communist grandstander who just killed the President of the United States in a pinko rage, denied he had anything to do with it. Before being transferred to county jail he was shot on live tv by a two-bit union mafia stooge, supposedly torn by grief at the death of the President (whose brother he personally hated), later claiming that it was part of a conspiracy the world will never know.

    Luckily, the crusading journalists of the unbiased media told the public the straight truth about what happened.

    Hoover wrote a memo that weekend demanding that the public be convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, LBJ appointed a commission, telling Commissioner Warren that he had to find that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, and as luck would have it, that commission concluded exactly that.

    This is the story of the JFK assassination as brought to you by the truth tellers in government and the media and if you have any questions about it you are a woo-woo, grassy-knoll, tin-foil, lizard-fearing America-hater.

    If you love Jesus, sunshine, ponies, monster trucks, mini-skirts and the American flag, you will never ask any questions about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

    This message has been brought to you by the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Warren Commission, and the MSM. Because Ignorance is Strength!

  39. The phrase ” Farewell America” sums it up. You know.. The America where the country is for the people, by the people and of the people. Nov 22,1963 was a Coup D’Etat brought to you by the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Until America faces that and deals with the truth of that…. it cannot flourish. There is much new compelling evidence that has been found in released CIA documents. These were released only after the film ” JFK” created a demand for their release..thank you Oliver Stone. Lee Oswald was sheep-dipped by the CIA and was a patsy just as he maintained. My surgical attending was in the ER at Parkland when JFK was brought in. JFK had a wound of entrance in the lower midline of the front of the neck through which a trachea was performed. He had a wound of entrance in the upper right forehead near the hairline and a massive exit wound in the lower right part of the back of his head. Let me emphasize.. Wounds of entrance from in front …not from behind(right rear) which is where Oswald was. Please read Jim Douglas book” JFK and the Unspeakable”. Please keep an open mind. We were controlled and still are and it is up to us to change that. God Bless.

  41. Come on now. The govt never lies. Those people who work for the govt love us and the country. They would never do anything to disrespect the Constitution. They protect us. We must never doubt them or what they say. Honor them with total obediance. Let there be no more of this seditious rumor mongering.

  42. Ya know, its important that we humans don’t generally live beyond 100 years or so. I think if we had significantly longer life spans, the old would have killed the younger generation out of contempt.