John F. Kennedy remembered: 62 years since the assassination that shook the world

 

November 22, will mark 62 years since an assassin’s bullet ended the life of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as his motorcade was traveling through the streets of Dallas.  

 

 

This coming Saturday, November 22, will mark 62 years since an assassin’s bullet ended the life of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as his motorcade was traveling through the streets of Dallas, Texas. 

For those who were alive at the time, it is one of those dates, like 9/11 or, more recently, October 7, that stays in one’s memory bank forever. And, of course, we will always be able to recall where we were when we heard the news. 

That fateful Friday, I was working as an active-duty signal officer serving in the US Army Reserve assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. At one point in the early afternoon, the word got out that the president had been shot at 12:30 p.m. central time and was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.  

 

 

Witnessing history

Disbelief was in everyone’s eyes, as it had been 61 years since William McKinley was assassinated, the last president to have been murdered while in office, which was well before those of us working at NASA were alive. 

Ninety-eight minutes after Kennedy was pronounced dead, as the US Constitution provides, then vice-president Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president in a hastily arranged ceremony on Air Force One presided over by a federal judge, Sarah T. Hughes. 

 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-874273