November 22nd has never been the same since they killed JFK

[malaise]

and it has always been where were you on that day.
I was a lil teenager in school in a foreign country but it hardly mattered. First there was a ripple then a wave of panic and sadness.

[49jim]

1. I was in 9th

grade and remember being in 8th period shop class listening to announcement on the radio. I remember each 22nd of November.

[raccoon]

2. Who do you think is "they?" Nt

[Rustynaerduwell]

7. A group of misguided anti Castro zeolots

including Frank Sturgis and E Howard Hunt.

[malaise]

8. Wish I knew n/t

[Irish_Dem]

36. Read the James W. Douglass book. One of the most important books

I have ever read.

Meticulous and brilliant.

JFK is in my thoughts a lot.
He and my father were both Boston Irish.

[malaise]

38. Thanks

Let me put that on my list

[Irish_Dem]

42. Feel free to pm me to discuss if you do read the book. nt

[malaise]

46. Cool

[Irish_Dem]

47. The book changed the way I see the world.

BTW I was living out of the country too when I heard the news about JFK.
Added to the grieving process, limited information and feeling disconnected.

[syringis]

49. Hello Irish_Dem

I will look for this book. I hope there is a French translation, it is easier for me. But if not, I will read it in English.

I'm really interested of getting all point of views.

I can't help myself thinking the memorandum JFK signed a few days before Dallas, ordering the US forces withdrawal from Vietnam have a relation with his assassination. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Irish_Dem]

51. Bonjour syringis

Je ne peux pas trouver une version française du livre, mais peut-être que vous pouvez en trouver un.

Je peux mieux lire le français que je ne peux l'écrire. Donc, apolgies pour l'outil de traduction. La famille de ma grand-mère vient de Namur en Belgique.

Le livre Douglass a changé ma façon de voir le monde et répondra à toutes vos questions sur l'assassinat de JFK, un auteur très réputé avec une recherche méticuleuse.

Et oui votre remarque sur le mémorandum est correcte, et plus tard LBJ a dit "ils peuvent avoir leur guerre".

[syringis]

58. Merci beaucoup :-)

Your French is great

Reading a foreign langage is easier than writting or talking in it, unless if you can practice with natives.

I live in Charleroi, not far from Namur Well, we are not far from anything here since the country is as big as a pocket handkerchief.

If I can't find a translation, I'll read the book in English. Perhaps it is better. Sometimes translations alters the meaning or diminish the impact of a word, idea, etc.

[Irish_Dem]

59. Merci! I will be happy to help if you run into something you

don't understand!

Your English is very good!

[syringis]

69. Hello Irish_Dem

I found a french translation of Douglass' book.

The title is a little different : "JFK et l'indicible"

I'll borrow it from my library. We have an awesome network of libraries in Wallonia

Over 1.5 million titles, new releases and best sellers available within 3/6 months, free loan for 4 weeks, renewable 2 times, if a book is not available in my local library, I can order it and the library where the book is will send it. The only difference in this case is the loan is not renewable.

Ebook readers can be borrowed too, newspapers, countless variety of documentation in almost all fields are available. Mostly can be consulted only at the library but it's possible to make copies. There is also reading rooms with free access to computers, on the top of all, computers are renewed +/- all 3 years, depending of budget. The only contribution asked for all services is 1 euro (yes only ONE euro) per year. A contribution to author's right. It really drives me crazy when I hear some people asking if they really have to pay that euro....
Oh yes, when you bring back the books too late, there is a sanction : 50 eurocents per book and per week.

Sorry, I almost wrote a book but my libraries make me so proud. The tax-payers money used very wisely for the benefit of all.

[Irish_Dem]

70. Bonjour syringis

Je suis tellement contente que tu aies trouvé le livre avec traduction française.
Et j'espère que vous l'apprécierez, bien que je vous prévienne que c'est déchirant.
Dis moi ce que tu penses de ça.

J'ai passé de nombreuses années à essayer de découvrir la vérité sur l'assassinat de JFK et ce livre a répondu à toutes les questions. L'auteur a fait un excellent travail en termes de recherche pour le livre.

Wow, vous avez un tel système de bibliothèque en Wallonie. Je crois que les bibliothèques aux États-Unis fonctionnent de la même façon, mais je n'en fais pas partie depuis des années. Je lis la plupart des choses en ligne maintenant ....

Quelles autres choses aimez-vous de Namur et de Wallonie? Vous pouvez pm si vous voulez! Un groupe de mes grands-parents vient d'Irlande, l'autre était français, un autre de Namur.

[LongTomH]

53. Thank you for mentioning Mr. Douglass' book. The US took a turn toward the dark with JFK's murder!!

[Irish_Dem]

55. The US has never been the same since the day JFK was murdered.

Don't really know if we are still a democracy.

[secondwind]

3. I was in high school in NYC, riding the train home

I knew something had happened because several people in the car looked upset and some were crying.

[ucrdem]

4. ..

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. I was a sophomore in college, living in a dorm just off campus.

I heard the news when I was on my way back to the dorm at lunchtime.....

It was a horrible, HORRIBLE day.

I hadn't been old enough to vote for him and I was looking forward so much to that special day...Alas for all of us and our country.

[malaise]

9. My oldest sister had left for college that year

She was born in New York as mom and dad were on their way home from England and mom went into labor on the ship. Our parents sure panicked - never mind sis was far away from Texas.

[Blue_true]

29. Hi Peggy, glad to see you here. Please stop by more.

I was really young, but remember my mother crying.

[Achilleaze]

6. .

[DFW]

10. It was a Friday

I was in the sixth grade. I was eleven years old.

My school in Washington had a 2:00 PM assembly every Friday, which was 1:00 PM in Dallas. Soon after, some teacher came in and collected RFK's two boys, Joe II and Bobby, Jr., and ushered them out. We noticed, but, hey, they were Kennedys. Could have been anything. Joe was in my class, but I was more friendly with Bobby, Jr. Their dad and mine were good friends.

On Fridays, I used to take the bus downtown to my dad's office at the National Press Building at 14th & F streets and ride home with him when he was done. There were always vendors of some local papers outside the Press Building. Some serious, some sensationalist. This time, before I went in to get the elevator up to my dad's floor, I saw huge headlines saying "JFK SLAIN!" I thought, this was really going too far, even for them.

When I got up to my dad's office, I entered and he was in animated conversations with a phone in each ear--very unusual for a Friday afternoon. He turned to me and nodded, but kept on the phones. Finally after he hung up, I asked him about what I had seen, and he said, yes, it was true.

The world was never the same since.

[malaise]

41. You were really close to it

[DFW]

62. Washington was like a headless chicken that weekend

I don't think anyone got used to what had happened any time soon after that.

[milestogo]

11. The country has never been the same since JFK was assassinated.

[whathehell]

12. I was 12 years old at the time, and yes, I agree.

[PCIntern]

13. Fifth grade in a Quaker school

The third grade teacher couldn’t have been happier.

[spiderpig]

14. 7th grade math class. Miss Coates was our teacher. We were working on an assignment.

Three chimes from the PA. We all looked up at the aluminum speaker mounted next to the clock. The walls were green.

The principal told us the president had been shot and it wasn't known whether he was alive or not.

Our lives were never the same after that.

[Vinca]

15. I remember it vividly. I'll never get the drums out of my head.

[ewagner]

20. Yes...the drums...

I also remember the pace at which Jackie, Bobbie and Ted walked behind the casson ... I took it as a sign of courage and dignity...and wondered if those who killed John had robbed us of our innocence...our courage...our dignity...

[Blue_true]

30. They took away some of our belief that we can do anything that is good if we work together. nt

[TNNurse]

16. It was a defining moment.

I was in 9th grade, Latin class. I also recall watching Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV. I went in the kitchen to tell Mother. She was stunned because she realized I had seen someone killed live on TV more than Oswald was dead. It was not video tape. My father had died 3 years before, our beloved President had been murdered and 14 yo me had just seen someone gunned down on live TV. It was a defining moment.

[rzemanfl]

17. In high school. 16 years old. n/t

[OnlinePoker]

18. Two years old that day

I never got a birthday cake or party according to my late mother.

[Blue_true]

33. I remember it rained in my town the day of his funeral.

After his funeral just ended, brilliant sunshine broke through the clouds as I stood outside our house with my older brother. I was really young, but I have never forgotten what that looked like or how I felt. I was way too young to have learned feelings of my own, I think that I mirrored how my parents seemed to feel on that day.

[FarCenter]

19. It was the end of the post WW II era of good feeling and national patriotism

During the Berlin Wall Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, students at university demonstrated in support of the US government.

Kennedy's assassination was followed by more assassinations, race riots, student sit-ins and demonstrations against the government's Vietnam War, and the riots at the Democratic Convention in '68.

[syringis]

21. It is interesting to hear from you all...

...how you lived this tragedy.

I was born one year later. I remember people talking about it but no one who did not live the events can really imagine what it was.

Even non Americans can't forget where they were and how they felt. For sure, not with the same intensity as yours, but I have heard many times there was a before and an after JFK's assassination.

I often wonder how the world would have been if JFK finished his term and a second. He made mistakes but he learned from them. He did great things too.

I don't understand why some historians judge his presidency as average or not so good, not so bad..., it is impossible to make any conclusion. Plus, very often, he is judged with nowdays standards, which is wrong in my opinion. The context was completely different. What would have he done for Cuba in another context ?

[Blue_true]

35. His Presidency was short. I was too young to know that at the time.

But studied history since. He did set a good table for LBJ to do a few great things, except for Vietnam, which damaged the country permenently.

[syringis]

48. Hello Blue_True

Yes, Vietnam was a "wrong" move. I would say, half wrong. If I remember well, a few days before he was killed, he signed an memorandum ordering a withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam.

He was aware Vietnam conflict was a threat for the world in terms of stability and security. He didn't support France in the name of liberty.

How things would have turned if Jonhson stayed by JFK views and kept the withdrawal from Vietnam ?

[bobbieinok]

56. I wasn't 21 in 60, so couldn't vote for JFK

My number 1 concern then and now - civil rights.

I couldn't understand how JFK could get the PTB in the democratic party to support his candacy but couldn't get democrats in congress to move on civil rights.

Sooo - i had decided I'd probably vote GOP in 64 if they had a decent candidate. I can't forget my disappointment in Kennedy on civil rights.

I had long been fasinated by JFK. I was teased in HS in 57 for carrying around his book Profiles in Courage. I had followed the 56 dem convention and was very angry that Sen Kerr (D-OK) blocked Kennedy's nomination for Veep. Obvious to me - good OK Southern Baptist that I was - the reason was that JFK was Catholic and Kerr a staunch SBCer.

[spanone]

22. I will never forget it.....

[FailureToCommunicate]

23. I won't ever forget that day. Our Fifth grade teacher, Ms Manning, came in crying...

and quietly told us that school was dismissed for the day. It was the first time I'd seen a teacher cry, and, from then on always saw them as real people, with real feelings and issues of their own.

We went home and followed the next few days of unfolding news glued to the small black and white TV. When the funeral march showed a black-veiled Jackie, I cryed all over again.

Too soon it was 1965,66,67,68 and civil rights marches, Watts riots, MLK and Robert Kennedy killed, Chicago Convention, Nixon, and war, war war...

November 22 '63. A turning point indeed.

[Upthevibe]

24. I was in 1st grade in Corpus Christi, TX...

A classmate by the name of Christine told me when we were in the middle of a crosswalk. I told her I didn't believe her and ran home. My mother was crying in front of the T.V. and confirmed it was true.

[RobinA]

27. Off Topic, But...

First time I ever saw a teacher cry was when Eisenhower died. I was in 6th grade at the time and didn't really get it. He was some President from long ago, in my mind, and had been a General in WW2. But I asked my parents, who were younger than this teacher but old enough to get it, and my father explained the way some people felt about Eisenhower.

I've had second hand respect for Eisenhower ever since. If his death could make a 6th grade teacher in Norristown, PA cry years after he was really famous, he must have been an inspiring guy.

[malaise]

34. Yes even the nuns cried

and very few of them were American

[RobinA]

25. Age 5

in 1st grade. I remember us being dismissed early without explanation, but this may not actually be true (the early part, not the lack of explanation). At any rate, I went out to where the school buses were to get on the bus and the flag was at half mast (didn't know that term at the time), which I had never seen. I asked a teacher why the flag was down and she said that it meant somebody important had died. I asked her who died and she said to ask my parents. Being a bundle of existential anxiety on a good day and an egocentric 5 year old, I thought about who was important that my parents would know and I decided that a grandparent had died. After all, they were OLD (probably in their upper '50's at the time). This upset me greatly, but on the bus I soon learned that it was the President. It seemed like this was a big deal, but at 5 I had no real context to really feel that way myself. I was ultimately more worried about Caroline and John-John who were mine and my sisters ages and whose father had died, in my mind the worst thing that could possibly happen to a 5 year old.

[Hoyt]

26. 9th Grade Geography class. Had everyone go outside to parking lot for some reason.

Even people who would likely be Trump supporters nowadays were upset. Back then in the South

[The Blue Flower]

52. Also ninth grade--gym class

In Orlando. We all met at the flagpole. I'll never forget the teachers crying. The day still fills me with sorrow. It was an unthinkable tragedy. I'll never forget that weekend, either, and the funeral on b&w tv. I was watching when Ruby shot Oswald. Things like that get seared into the brain.

[Hoyt]

54. Yeah, I remember like 3 days of sadness B&W TV. My dad, who was not that big a JFK fan, was upset

too. My mom liked the whole "Camelot" and glamour of that time, so she was upset. I will always remember the Kennedy kids and the sound of the drum cadence.

Losing a USA President suddenly -- even a george bush -- would be traumatizing and a blow to the world. Trump, might be an exception.

[Blue_true]

28. First thing that I thought of this morning.

Iconic, sad, awful day.

[MaryMagdaline]

31. Four years old

Lived in Santa Maria California. My dad was a civilian employee at Vandenburg AFB. My mother must have told me. My sister came home for lunch and I told her the "Colonel" had died. The second time she came home at the end of the day, she was crying. Kids at school were saying "Yeah! Kennedy is dead!" Santa Maria still s bastion of RW from what I hear.

That was my first experience of death, and felt like a death in the family. Also my first experience of them vs us.

Kennedy changed my parents. Irish Catholics who voted for Nixon. My mother became a Great Society Democrat and mostly socialist. Never had grapes in the house after Cesar Chavez's first strike.

Extreme sadness but a lasting legacy from that day

[ProfessorGAC]

32. Second Grade: Home Sick

Mom was in kitchen talking to her friend on the phone. She was waiting for As the World Turns to come on Channel 2 on the little TV we had in a spare bedroom across the hall from the kitchen. (3BR ranch, but in those days it was just me, mom and dad.)

My mom is telling her friend she has to get going because her show is coming on, when the bulletin hit.

She asks me what they just said. I told her "they said the president's been shot". She tells her friend and says "gotta go".

Glued to TV until my dad came home about 3 hours later.

[Timer]

37. I was in the sixth grade in Austin.

JFK's next stop after Dallas was going to be Austin. We were scheduled to be let out of school early so we could see the President's motorcade downtown. We were having lunch in the cafeteria when the word spread in whispers that Kennedy had been shot. No one knew if he was alive. About a half hour later, our teacher, Mr. Knight, told us the President was dead. Soon school was let out as planned.
For the dinner event at what was then called Municipal Auditorium, where the President and other political dignitaries were to appear, LBJ's remarks were to begin with a joke congratulating JFK for getting out of Dallas alive.

[Greybnk48]

39. I was a sophomore in H.S.

I just turned 15. I was home sick from school and heard it on the radio. My dad almost had to slap me because I couldn't get my breath to tell them what I had just heard, and then I just screamed it! A truly nightmare day and week.

[DownriverDem]

40. Found Mom pounding

the kitchenette wall when I got home from school. I was in 7th grade (Catholic School) and the Principal (nun) came on the PA and told us that the President was shot. We all put our heads down on our desks and prayed. I'll never forget coming in the house and seeing my Mom beating on the kitchenette wall and crying. It was a very horrible, sad and frightening time.

[cornball 24]

43. Home with my baby son. Husband came home with beautiful antique marble top table given

to him by a client. He hadn't heard yet. We cried. Marble top had "22" etched on back of it. I still have it through all my moves over the years.

[malaise]

45. Wow!

Did you etch it or did it come with that?

[cornball 24]

67. Oh no, it came that way. That is the fascinating aspect of "the table".

[LonghornJack]

44. It was a Huge Shock, followed by a Great Emptiness

I recall being told about JFK being shot just as class at Catholic school in my small South Texas town was to resume after lunch break. A nun quietly told us to pray because "...the President has been shot." I was in 6th grade, all of 11 yrs old. I couldn't believe my ears, as she kept repeating the news. When Walter Cronkite confirmed JFK's passing later, I remembered everyone in the classroom stunned into silence. Then rumors started flying about who might have done this... the Russians? the Cubans?....

Afterwards, as the news sunk in, and the country began mourning. It felt like a great emptiness. Some said it felt as though God had left us. It took me a couple of weeks to recover.

I agree with a lot of what DUers have been saying on this thread -- the nation has not been the same since that day.

There's been a touch of sadness to every November 22 since that awful day.


LHJ

[oasis]

50. I clearly remember everything about that day and the solemn period

afterwards.

[stopbush]

57. Since he killed JFK. Not they.

So tired of people making excuses for and glorifying Oswald, the fucker who killed JFK.

[BannonsLiver]

66. It's okay to believe Oswald acted alone

But also to question who might have hired him for the job.

[stopbush]

68. All of that was thoroughly, THOROUGHLY investigated decades ago.

There’s just no evidence to support the CTs. I guess they’re OK as a thought game, but there’s no basis in reality.

[bobbieinok]

60. I was in my 2nd yr of grad school

Fellow student came back from run to drug store for aspirin and told us. We all went to the student union and watched with a crowd as LBJ was sworn in on the airplane back to DC.

After that horrible weekend that seemed never to end, the school held a memorial service in inner quad (a v large space). After the quad was packed with quiet mourners, the faculty marched in dressed in their academic robes. It was the first time in my life that I saw grown men cry in public.

[Hangingon]

61. I was a junior at Univ. of North Texas.

I 30 miles North of Dallas. We had a guest speaker in an afternoon pol. Sci. Class and the prof didn’t cancel. Left for home in Dallas about 2:30 pm. Such a different weekend in Dallas. My now wife was student teaching in South Dallas and working as an operator at a answering service that handled Dallas Lawyer referrals.

[Grammy23]

63. I was in my 10th grade biology class in high school, Ft. Worth, TX.

I had just passed my 15th birthday on Nov. 13th. There was an announcement on the PA and Mr. Van Meter, my teacher, went out in the hall. The announcement was kind of garbled and he went out to see if he could find out more. We knew the President had been shot but no one knew if he was still alive. Eventually we learned he had died and there was a lot of crying and shock as the truth started to sink in. Some boys cheered but were quickly told to stop by the teacher.

We changed classes and I went to my English class but we didn’t do any work. Mostly we just sat in semi-stunned silence. School was dismissed early and I rode the bus home.

As soon as I got off the bus, I noticed a commotion at a house near ours that was separated by a street and a junior high school track. But you could clearly see the house surrounded by police and people in plain clothes. As it turned out, it was the home of Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother. We did not know the lady (we had just moved to Ft. Worth that June) and only learned who she was in relation to the shooter later that night on the news.

As it turned out, my parents had had an opportunity to attend a breakfast for President Kennedy that morning in Ft. Worth but both had decided they would go to work. (Much to their regret later!) A few days later, my mother, sister and I came home from church to hear from my grandfather that Oswald had been killed on TV, live. He was normally a quiet, non-talkative man, but he was chattering away trying to explain what he had seen on television.

It was a chaotic time in America, in many ways. Even though Johnson had been sworn in as President, it felt odd, almost like we had no leader. Eventually, that feeling dissolved but for those sad days in November, it was frightening and disturbing. I think many people felt vulnerable and got a sickening taste of reality that things can change in a moment. It was a real eye opener for me as a teenage girl. Probably a turning point. Oddly enough, my own father died four years later after a sudden illness that took his life in eight days. Those two events made me keenly aware of how most of what we take as normal and stable are simply illusions that help us maintain our sanity and a false sense of “control”.

[jalan48]

64. I was in High School study hall. For our family it was like a enormous blackness overtook

the household. I know what you mean about it never being the same. Our country changed that day and started down a dark path.

[VOX]

65. 10th-grade French class. Teacher read the bulletin and collapsed in tears.

The rush of emotions in the classroom were as varied as they were intense: some cried, some chattered anxiously, others, like me, turned toward the windows and just stared. I didn’t cry, but I was overcome with a profound sadness. JFK was like a god of hope and promise; he’d made the Soviets back down by tenacity and diplomacy, he was taking us into space exploration, the future he promised was filled with heady possibilities.

And then he was gone. And with him, the dream. In retrospect, it’s as if his murder was the spark that lit the fuse to the more explosive and turbulent 1960s that were closing in fast.