11/22/24

 Friday, November 22, 2024

1963 US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald

In bed at 9, awake at 2:15, unable to sleep and up at 3:00.    Lilly showed up at 5:20 to be let out.  I loaded and turned on the dishwasher and washed a load of napkins in the washing machine.

Prednisone, day 192, 7.5 mg., day 8.   Prednisone at 5:50.  Trulicity injection at 7:15, morning meds in between sometime.  Both shoulders sore, as normal.

On this date in 1963, I sat on bleacher seats somewhere in the woods of Northern Virginia with my class of other 2nd lieutenants at the Marine Corps Officer Basic School.  I don't remember what the subject of the class was or who the instructor was.  I was 22 years old.  From my memoir:

Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 22nd, I was sitting with my class on some risers out in the woods waiting for a class of some sort to begin.  An officer drove up in a Jeep and spoke to the instructor and then to us.  President Kennedy had been shot to death in Dallas.

What happened next?  Were we dismissed?  Was the base secured?  Did we continue with the instruction?  Was there any discussion of what the assassination might mean for the military?  I have no memory of it.  I was so stunned that I think my mind dropped into low gear.  The enormity of the crime was too much to absorb.  Your mother and I spent that night and all day Saturday watching the news.  I don’t remember this; I am assuming that we had a television.  In any event, we were at least listening to the news and learned that the assassin was a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.  Kennedy’s body was returned to Washington and lay in repose in the East Room of the White House until Sunday when it was moved to the Capitol rotunda for public viewing.

On Sunday morning, your mother and I drove the short trip up US 1 to Washington.  I wore my uniform.  With thousands of others, we stood on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill.  As we waited for the cortege, someone in the crowd with a portable radio announced that Oswald had been shot and killed while in police custody in Dallas.  Shortly thereafter the vanguard of the cortege passed and we could hear the approaching muffled drums and nothing else.  All were silent, solemn.  The shock and pain of the assassination and the knowledge that the assassin was a former Marine was now compounded by the almost unbelievable news of Oswald’s death in police custody.  The muffled drums drew closer and louder, the caisson carrying the President’s body came into view and passed, as did the riderless horse behind it.  I saluted as the body passed and then we went home, wondering what was happening to the country.

Years later, I was in Dallas for a conference or on some legal business and I went to Dealey Plaza and to the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building where Lee Harvey Oswald lay in wait for Kennedy's caravan to pass.  The building was no longer used as a schoolbook warehouse but was a Dallas County Administrative Building housing county offices and The Sixth Floor Museum.  My visit was a chilling experience, even more chilling than my visit to the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima.  I stood a couple of feet from the window from which Oswald shot Kennedy.  I am remembering that austere warehouse space and my numb feeling as I type these words.

If America had a post-war Age of Innocence or Triumphalism (which it didn't), it surely ended on November 22, 1963.  The assassination started a decade of descent and social deconstruction: LBJ's fatal invasion of Vietnam in 1965 leading to years of anti-war protests, the assassinations of MLK and RFK in 1968, the Chicago police riot at the Democratic Convention in the same year, almost countless riots by Blacks in American cities, the killings of students at Kent State and Jackson State and the bombing of Sterling Hall at UW-Madison in 1970, and the final withdrawal of American troops in defeat from South Vietnam in 1973.  And much more.  Extend the 'decade' until April 1975 and we had Watergate, Nixon's resignation in disgrace, the inevitable fall of Saigon, the photos and videos of desperate people climbing into Marine helicopters on rooftops, and the humiliation of the United States and its vaunted, supposedly invincible military power.  It was the decade (or so) when I moved from my early 20s to my early 30s and it had profound effects on me and my attitude toward the American government and the whole "power Establishment."  I have long thought that my pessimism and cynicism were rooted in my experiences as a child growing up within the cloud of my father's post-war PTSD, but I wonder how much of my 'abiding sense of tragedy' comes from that decade of descent between November 22, 1963 and 1973/75.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  These are words attributed to Jesus at John 14:27.  I thought of them as I crawled out of bed in the middle of the night, thinking of Thanksgiving.  The ultimate promise of Christianity, other than eternal life in Heaven, is peace of mind here on earth.  "Do not let your hearts be troubled." John 14:1. "Peace be with you." "Go in peace."  Peace, peace, peace.  Shalom.  Pax vobiscum.  " When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things." Mark 6:L34.  What was it about the lives of the people who sought out Jesus as their teacher, their helper, their reliever of spiritual troubles, and their provider of hope and understanding?  The same questions for John the Baptist.  Was it the rigors of Temple Era Judaism and Halakah?  Was it the burdens of Roman occupation?  Or was it just the trials, the challenges, the anxieties, vicissitudes, and uncertainties of life?  What is it that leads people today to the Gospel narratives of Jesus, to any of the mainstream religions, to the fundamentalist, pentecostal religions, or to New Age religions or cults?  It must be some kind of need-satisfaction or people wouldn't do it.