Kinda surprised no one posted this ... A Secret Service agent who was with JFK on day of his assassination breaks silence with claim that blows up the 'magic bullet' theory and suggests there WAS more than one shooter.
He heard more than one shot. Found ONE of the bullets...
Classification is never done to "protect against embarrassment," but to protect sources and methods... and also largely unmentioned, to protect anonymity... and that is, acknowledging that we know something, even if that thing is obvious.
Personally, I'm of the impression ... to use a term the Millennials use a lot today, the law of Occam's Razor, basically suggests it is the simplest answer. And for me, that's Oswald who did it alone.
But I certainly accept the possibility that there could have been a second shooter. On the classified stuff, there is absolutely nothing I can think of that... 60+ years later, there is literally anything from that time period that still needs to be classified. The only thing possibly are nuclear secrets / Atomic Energy... which I can't imagine have anything to do with Oswald. Trump basically declassified almost everything... but STILL agreed to not declassify a couple of things. While classification is not meant to protect against embarrassment, I wonder if perhaps that's exactly what happened...
I am generally skeptical about conspiracy theories, but I also know that some of them are true.
There are some sketchy questions about the Kennedy assassination, but at this point the truth will never be known. Everyone involved would be dead by know.
There has been a "second gunman" theory as far back as I can remember, which is supported by audio from police motorcycle radios. It could be, but I don't think that is the most important part.
I believed the official story for many years, but as I get older and hear more details, I can't help but suspect that it was a bigger, more sinister plan. I would not be in the least bit surprised to find out that LBJ had a hand in the plan.
I have said before, that LBJ planted the seeds and Obama reaped the harvest. Yeah, there were some before LBJ and after Obama, but they were just stage hands and caretakers.
Everyone knows the girl on the left, but how many can identify the one on the right? Don't lie. There are probably two or three on here who know why she is important.
Everyone knows the girl on the left, but how many can identify the one on the right?
It took me a while to even notice there was someone on the right... 😬
Anyways, I just spent 30 minutes arguing with ChatGPT. I was asking him which - based on the information he was trained on - was more likely; a single gunman or multiple gunmen. He would not give me an answer and kept repeating that he was specifically programmed to not give (speculative) answers on topics which are so highly controversial. It took me quite a bit of convincing from my end to finally have him give me an answer. The result: 30% lone gunman, 70% multiple gunmen.
Then again, this is from the same AI who said Pontiac Fieros use snap on couplings on their transmission lines.
Everyone knows the girl on the left, but how many can identify the one on the right? Don't lie. There are probably two or three on here who know why she is important.
If you know something Willie, just spit it out. What's your line here?
This latest report from the former Secret Service agent contains some conflicting info, compared to the initial statements he gave to authorities. I'm kind of of the opinion, "So? What else have you got?" But maybe someone else will have something to say. I'm not holding my breath.
Not that I don't care. Quite the contrary. I am about 1/4 way through a book about JFK and the assassination. It's called "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters", by James W. Douglass. I was not at all familiar with the author, but a quick bit of research shows that he is quite the outspoken pacifist. But according to him, so was Kennedy. Fair enough. But he tells a compelling story.
The book/author takes the position that Kennedy was at odds with the Joint Chiefs, The CIA, and the FBI, from right out of the gate. They wanted war - even nuclear war. He did not. You can guess where this is going.
This latest report from the former Secret Service agent contains some conflicting info, compared to the initial statements he gave to authorities. I'm kind of of the opinion, "So? What else have you got?" But maybe someone else will have something to say. I'm not holding my breath.
Not that I don't care. Quite the contrary. I am about 1/4 way through a book about JFK and the assassination. It's called "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters", by James W. Douglass. I was not at all familiar with the author, but a quick bit of research shows that he is quite the outspoken pacifist. But according to him, so was Kennedy. Fair enough. But he tells a compelling story.
The book/author takes the position that Kennedy was at odds with the Joint Chiefs, The CIA, and the FBI, from right out of the gate. They wanted war - even nuclear war. He did not. You can guess where this is going.
The way I understood it, JFK really struggled with the Viet Nam problem, but within eight months of LBJ's presidency, we had the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The way I understood it, JFK really struggled with the Viet Nam problem, but within eight months of LBJ's presidency, we had the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
There was a lot more to it than 'Nam. VietNam was actually considered "small change", from what I can gather. Laos was the real issue - at least in the beginning. Cuba was a big deal, too. Everybody but JFK wanted war - with whoever.
Yes, Laos was a huge issue for both JFK and LBJ. (and no small one for me. )
No doubt. You were there in the thick of it. I came along a few years after. I was too young to understand world politics - or any politics for that matter. But I'm pretty sure that none of us were allowed to really understand what was going on. We only understood what they wanted us to understand.
After diving in to the aforementioned book, I find myself amazed at all the power the president doesn't have. Our country is run like a freakin' syndicate. (I have to believe that not much is changed - at least not for the better.) Kennedy got to "sleep with the fishes."
So yeah, the conspirators had the two sharpshooters stationed behind the fence above the grassy knoll, and, no doubt, still higher in the TBD where the fall guy, Lee Oswald, was having a sandwich at the time.
Lyndon Johnson ultimately failed strategically, a sordid tale, a corrupt man directing a war in futility. His desire for power is what took Kennedy's life, it is the same story over and again, for thousands of years and more. Ultimate power and men's minds, that bone over which dogs of war fight. I actually believed at the time, that JFK was a great moral man, and was destined for victory over the worst of the world. The school's instructor was weeping, a beautiful young woman, tears running down her cheeks, ' President Kennedy has been shot ' a handkerchief dabbing her eyes. ' Like Abraham Lincoln ? ' I thought, ' Was it the the Russians ? ' Classes were dismissed, so we all went outside and speculated about what had happened. Which motivated my search for the truth, for all this time.
Now, let me tell you all about Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Murdering McKinley
The school's instructor was weeping, a beautiful young woman, tears running down her cheeks, ' President Kennedy has been shot ' a handkerchief dabbing her eyes. ' Like Abraham Lincoln ? ' I thought, ' Was it the the Russians ? ' Classes were dismissed, so we all went outside and speculated about what had happened.
I was in Grade 3 at the time. Over the school's PA system, all classes were requested to gather in the auditorium. The purpose of the unannounced assembly was not stated. I can still vividly recall however, while we were walking to the auditorium, some other student murmuring something about the Queen being shot. Well, we were just little kids... and this was Canada, 1963.
Dallas TX is two time zones ahead of the coast, so President Kennedy was shot at 10:30 AM local time. We were all sent home after the assembly. I can still remember watching Walter Cronkite being visibly upset when he announced that President Kennedy had died. What an awful effing day.
I found the clip on YouTube. Damn, I still get choked watching this... just short of 60 years later.
I was in Grade 3 at the time. Over the school's PA system, all classes were requested to gather in the auditorium. The purpose of the unannounced assembly was not stated. I can still vividly recall however, while we were walking to the auditorium, some other student murmuring something about the Queen being shot. Well, we were just little kids... and this was Canada, 1963.
Dallas TX is two time zones ahead of the coast, so President Kennedy was shot at 10:30 AM local time. We were all sent home after the assembly. I can still remember watching Walter Cronkite being visibly upset when he announced that President Kennedy had died. What an awful effing day.
I found the clip on YouTube. Damn, I still get choked watching this... just short of 60 years later.
I can't see the video, but I too remember Cronkite's broadcast. My mother certainly cried then but my father was (as always) somewhat stoic. (He said mom was really more saddened when FDR died...she thought he and especially his wife Eleanor hung the moon)
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 09-13-2023).]
I was in Grade 3 at the time. Over the school's PA system, all classes were requested to gather in the auditorium. The purpose of the unannounced assembly was not stated. I can still vividly recall however, while we were walking to the auditorium, some other student murmuring something about the Queen being shot. Well, we were just little kids... and this was Canada, 1963.
Dallas TX is two time zones ahead of the coast, so President Kennedy was shot at 10:30 AM local time. We were all sent home after the assembly. I can still remember watching Walter Cronkite being visibly upset when he announced that President Kennedy had died. What an awful effing day.
I found the clip on YouTube. Damn, I still get choked watching this... just short of 60 years later.
I don't think I ever watched that report from Cronkite before. Obviously I wasn't even a thought yet, and my dad had just moved to this country earlier in the year from the Netherlands.
I realize though that most people my age can't really fully appreciate the impact something like this would have on a person, emotionally, at the time. The same goes for people probably your age who are equally indifferent, perhaps, to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even as a Canadian of course, that's not to say you don't care and don't think it was a tragic situation, but you may not have the same emotions as someone living at the time. It's the same for Millennials and younger, as it applies to 9/11. It used to bother me, because 9/11 had a profound effect on me. But then I thought about it and related my own "feelings" about Pearl Harbor, and recognized that for most people... if you're not there... it just doesn't have the same impact.
He was a good President though... sexual misconduct aside, I very much liked the guy... he made Americans proud to be American.
Also, there is the "Magic Bullet"...There were as many as SEVEN exit and entry wounds in Kennedy and Connally...The Warren Commision stated that >>ONE<< bullet did all of that....Sounds somewhat unlikely.
Dealey Plaza, Dallas, TX 75202, United States -- 32.7788184,-96.8082993
A view from the window. Trajectories of the assassins aims, to the moving target, firing simultaneously on signal from the ' umbrella man ' More than one rifle above and behind, Malcolm ' Mac ' Wallace from the TSBD, another perhaps, in the next building, obviously, likely. Two more unidentified snipers from behind the fence on the grassy knoll, a firing squad. Triangulated, enabled, planned, coordinated, executed for Lyndon Johnson, by cia, fib. Escalating the war in Vietnam, as desired. ' It's a big sandwich.. ' ~ Stanley Kubrick's ' Full Metal Jacket ' The Warren report was a criminal cover up, the opposite of truth. Many suckers have swallowed that shiny hook, a conman's lie, LBJ's. What the event signifies is the mic's Extra Constitutional control of the USA. ' It's a conspiracy ! We gotta stop them ! ' ~ Mickey Rooney as the inside man, the whistleblower, the confidential informant.
[This message has been edited by Valkrie9 (edited 09-16-2023).]
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: I don't think I ever watched that report from Cronkite before. Obviously I wasn't even a thought yet, and my dad had just moved to this country earlier in the year from the Netherlands.
I realize though that most people my age can't really fully appreciate the impact something like this would have on a person, emotionally, at the time. The same goes for people probably your age who are equally indifferent, perhaps, to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even as a Canadian of course, that's not to say you don't care and don't think it was a tragic situation, but you may not have the same emotions as someone living at the time. It's the same for Millennials and younger, as it applies to 9/11. It used to bother me, because 9/11 had a profound effect on me. But then I thought about it and related my own "feelings" about Pearl Harbor, and recognized that for most people... if you're not there... it just doesn't have the same impact.
He was a good President though... sexual misconduct aside, I very much liked the guy... he made Americans proud to be American.
Pearl Harbor was 9 years before my birth but even hearing about it had a very strong effect on me and most of my generation.
Also, there is the "Magic Bullet"...There were as many as SEVEN exit and entry wounds in Kennedy and Connally...The Warren Commision stated that >>ONE<< bullet did all of that....Sounds somewhat unlikely.
Diagram of the Magic Bullet's path....
That's kinda crazy - Didn't he have a head wound? (are those "head wound" images fake?)
Wikipedia has a lot of info regarding the autopsy. And that bullet looks pretty unscathed after bouncing around a bunch... I've only '**** ' a half dozen times, but the bullets never looked so "pristine" afterwoods...
That's kinda crazy - Didn't he have a head wound? (are those "head wound" images fake?)
Wikipedia has a lot of info regarding the autopsy. And that bullet looks pretty unscathed after bouncing around a bunch... I've only '**** ' a half dozen times, but the bullets never looked so "pristine" afterwoods...
The autopsy found that Kennedy was hit by two bullets. One entered his upper back and exited below his neck, albeit obscured by a tracheotomy. The other bullet struck Kennedy in the back of his head and exited the front of his skull in a large exit wound. The trajectory of the latter bullet was marked by bullet fragments throughout his brain. The former bullet was not found during the autopsy, but was discovered at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. It later became the subject of the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory, often derided as the "magic-bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists.
It was bullet #2 that splattered brain material onto Jackie's dress tho the press politely referred to it as blood stains that got there when she cradled his head in her lap on the way to parkland hospital.
"I want them to see what they have done"
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 09-16-2023).]
But then I thought about it and related my own "feelings" about Pearl Harbor, and recognized that for most people... if you're not there... it just doesn't have the same impact.
quote
Originally posted by maryjane:
Pearl Harbor was 9 years before my birth but even hearing about it had a very strong effect on me and most of my generation.
The attack occurred 14 years before I was born, but both of my parents were in their 20's and were living here in Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. Looking at a map, it's not surprising that Japan's dramatic entrance into WW2 was very much a concern for Canadians (and Americans of course) living on the west coast of North America. The attack on Pearl Harbor was viewed by my parent's generation as a horrendous action, and as a child, I recall hearing about this relatively recent historical event over and over again. It had an impact on me for sure.
The evidence directly before you, rendering false the Warren Report's theoretical, improbable conclusion.
' I’ve checked, and one in four vice presidents become president upon the death of the president, and frankly, I’m a gambling man, and I like the odds. ' ~ LBJ 1960
' John Kennedy will not live out his term and he will die a violent death.' ~ Bobby Baker, Inaugural Day 1961, a very cold day.
' Of the CIA, John Kennedy vowed to shatter the agency, “ into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind. ” He asked for the resignation of the Bay of Pig planners. '
' After the assassination of President Kennedy, a fingerprint was found on a cardboard box in the sniper’s nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. It could not be linked with Oswald, any other employee of the Texas School Book Depository, or any law enforcement officer who had handled the box. Wallace’s print from his previous conviction and the one found on the box were a match, according to fingerprint expert A. Nathan Darby, former head of Austin’s police identification unit. Darby was the most experienced certified latent print examiner in America, with more than thirty-five years of military forensic and police experience. An initial comparison found a match between the two prints on fourteen unique points while Darby ultimately ascertained that the two prints had thirty-two matching points, far exceeding the requirement for identification and conviction. “ I’m positive,” said Darby. “ The finger that made the ink print also made the latent print. It’s a match.” In comparison, “ the Dallas police found only three partial fingerprints of Oswald on only two of the boxes in the area. ” ~ Roger Stone, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ
' There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this, Deny your responsibility. ' ~ President Lyndon B. Johnson after the event.
The Girl Who Shot JFK A Castro assassin present at Dealy Plaza! Bobby Baker Gossip, innuendo, tattletales, and context. Baker Interview A man could spend a lifetime searching for the truth, and not find it. The truth is plainly obvious, look at it, do you see how evil it is ? An American Horror Story.
Originally posted by maryjane: Pearl Harbor was 9 years before my birth but even hearing about it had a very strong effect on me and most of my generation.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm indifferent to it. That's certainly not the case, it just doesn't have the same impact to me as 9/11 does which I personally lived through as an adult. When I've gone to the Arizona memorial, it absolutely affects me. I can't stand there on that platform and look at that wall of names, and not get emotional. It's the same feeling I have when I look at the Vietnam memorial, or even the Korean and WW2 memorial with all the quotes. Maybe I just have Low-T, hahaah... I don't know, but I get choked up.
But to my point, I think it has to do with means of separation. You were born 9 years after Pearl Harbor. My daughter was born 7 years after 9/11. She's certainly affected by 9/11... but that's because she grew up with me talking about it ... along with all of her teachers. But for people who were born shortly after Pearl Harbor... their kids likely aren't AS emotionally affected by Pearl Harbor just as my daughter (while she cares and talks about it every 9/11) isn't AS affected by 9/11 as I am. And her kids will be even less so I would think.
Look, I'm trying to provide an excuse for Millennials. Do you want me to just say that all Millennials are emotionally broken? Hahah...
I was born 24 days before the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel in June of 1950. 5 years after Japan surrendered and WW2 ended.
My mother was very prim & proper 99% of the time. That other 1% was usually about the Japanese or Germans. I never heard her reference the Japanese other than "Japs' and almost always was preceded by the words 'Those Dirty as in 'Those dirty Japs! .... It was very common to hear it from a lot of people. My Dad owned an auto shop and refused to work on a foreign car with the one exception, that being anything British. He broke a long time friendship when he told one of his friends to "get that piece of trash off my property", referring to a Datsun. He hated anything German with a passion and not much better for French stuff.
I will try to share the atmosphere from those post war days I grew up in. VE and VJ Day was still actively observed. I remember at least 1 parade on a VJ Day in my home town. And of course, the other holidays were much more then than department store sales opportunities like they are today. It was still normal to see injured WW2 veterans in wheelchairs and crutches about town convalescing, still normal to meet someone missing a limb or having burn scars from their wartime 'stuff'. Still normal to see a gold star in someone's front window, indicating they had lost a family member in combat. 3 of my uncles had served in combat, US Army or US Navy and my Father was drafted in to the US Army. I was exposed as it were, to WW2 from a very early age. As stated above, father had an auto shop there in the little town we grew up in and my twin and I as well as my youngest older sister worked in it too. On weekends, and especially Saturday mornings in the winter, some of my father's friends gathered there around a homebuilt natural gas heater. Just off the shelf stovepipe from the local hardware store, piped to a natural gas outlet and hose. Rudimentary, but worked well if you were sitting or standing around it. It used a LOT of natural gas tho, and was one of the few things my otherwise frugal Dad splurged $$$ on, mostly for his friends use,
In the summer, there was a big floor fan that served a similar purpose in regards to cooling off in the Houston area heat and humidity.
Most of the gentlemen there would have been in their mid 40s except one a bit younger that didn't serve during WW2. Consider, that at a young age, anyone iin their late 30s or mid 40s looked and seemed old and all these men did to me. But, my brother and I sat with them and heard the stories first hand from them of their experiences during WW2. It was an eye opener for young minds. Now,my Dad was drafted late in WW2, after Roosevelt approved the call up of married men. The draft originally only selected from single men, then married men, then married with children as the war went on. Dad never went overseas. Served most of his time near or in Washington DC and was discharged at Ft Meade Md. He had been a mechanic since the early days of automotive history, a whiz on Model Ts and Model As, and worked at motor pool and as a driver for some major at Ft Meade and Ft Walter Reed in D.C.. The major he drove for gave him a new assignment one day, pulling him out of MotorT and driving and had him help start up a new program to teach combat injured soldiers how to make a living once they recovered and were going to be discharged. Dad taught how to overhaul carburetors, generators and starters and manual transmissions. (all those could be done at a bench and were pretty simple back then. ) I think he was most proud of doing that above all else in his life.
But Dad's circle of friends mostly were made up of WW2 US Army and US Navy combat veterans, almost all from the Pacific. One told of the scary days of kamikaze attacks at Leyte and , another of the invasion of the Philippines and of a battle on Cactus ridge. They held little back in the descriptions & I did not understand at the time, the pain that was evident in these conversations. I also didn't grasp then, that at the time they happened, kamakazi attacks were something totally foreign to the American style of warfare. It was 'beneath us'. One of the men there was on a troop ship and his battle station was on a Bofors 40mm anti aircraft gun mount.
Late in the war and afterwards, my mother was a Rosie the Riveter type, but instead of airplanes, she worked 1st in Northeast Texas at Red River Arsenal, where they built and boxed ammunition and ordinance, then after Dad was discharged and they moved down near Houston, Dad went to work at Humble Oil and Refining in Baytown and mom went to work up the ship channel about 10 miles at the San Jacinto Ordinance depot where they stored and did final assembly of ordinance for final shipment overseas. In 1947, mother had just got to work when an explosion was heard and a big shockwave felt. The SS Grand Camp 30 miles away at Texas City had blown up, the biggest industrial accident in US history, leveling 1000 buildings, the big Monsanto plant and breaking windows as far away as Galveston. Mother was scared that Humble refinery had blown up and Dad was afraid the ordinance depot had gone up. It was a couple of hours when the news carried the Texas City story and many were afraid some one had bombed Houston, Pearl Harbor style.. It was that fresh in everyone's minds.
One day, one of Dad's friends named Herschel Blackford ( He owned a '54 Packard Clipper I absolutely hated to work on ; a heavy low slung car with dual exhausts, a straight 8 and automatic transmission) but was a man I got to know very well a couple of years later) asked the younger man, Cecil Singleton how his wartime activities went and Cecil just said, almost distantly, as he moved closer to the heater "It was cold, so f****** cold". That was all I knew of Cecil Singleton then except his daughter was my age and in my class, but the next summer, I went to work for him hauling hay and working cows. He had a big farm just North of my hometown, over 100 acres of hayfield, and lots of horned Brahma/hereford cross cows. Work in the hayfield started late spring/early summer depending on the weather, with the first cutting. Usually got 3 cuttings 2 months apart..depending on the weather. Thousands of 50 lb square bales eah cutting and me, my brother and 1 or 2 other young teens loaded em on trucks and trailers, to be stacked in one of the biggest barns I ever saw. We got paid 5-7¢ a bale. But, Cecil worked right out there with us, and June thru late Sept, in the fierce Texas heat and humidity picked those bales up like they were nothing, ALAWAYS in jeans and thick khaki long sleeve shirt, soaked wet with sweat. He walked with a bad limp but never slowed down. Cecil was a man of few words but there was no mistake that he was A MAN, of the old kind. Branding spring born calves took place in June or early July. Our same group of young boys helped. Hard, hot dirty work. The branding irons glowed red in the hot fire in the middle of the cowpens. Cecil's dad. probably in his 70s at the time joined us, bringing sandwiches and iced tea when we broke for lunch. I remember sitting on a truckbed with the older Singleton and watching as Cecil just stood by the fire, hot as the summer sun was, again in long sleeves. He crossed his arms and I swore he was shivering. I asked his dad if he was sick and why he always dressed so heavily and he just said, "You'll have to ask him boy, but he never wants to be cold again". It made no sense to me. It was damn hot.
I guess I was 16 when i first started talking about joining the Marines. My Dad was dead set against it, telling me "Boy, you better think long and hard about that notion...that's something that's a whole different ballgame altogether. They don't mess around" But I still brought it up some and one Saturday I saw Cecil drive up and my Dad went and met him for a few minutes before Cecil got out of his old farm truck, came back and told me to go with 'Mr. Singleton', so i climbed in. That's the day I found out. Cecil Singleton was one of the Chosin Few. He wasn't in WW2 but was with Chesty Puller and the 1st Marine Division as they fought and died on their way back from Korea's frozen Chosin Reservoir the year I was born. He told me as we drove around, of the frozen bodies of dead Chinese they stacked up at night as protection to shoot from. Of the endless days of walking on ice and snow, fighting, bleeding, never giving up till they reached the coast and Hungnam. It was below zero in the daytime and -30 at night. Cecil got frostbite and lost 3 toes on his left foot, which was why he limped. He never felt warm again but was terribly proud to be a US Marine. . Almost back home, he turned and told me "I'll tell you one thing son. When you come back, this mainstreet here won't be wide enough for anyone but you to walk down".
I don't know to this day what my Dad thought the outcome of that conversation would be, but from that moment on, I knew I would become a US Marine. I forged his name on the enlistment parental permission form at 17 (got caught and had to wait till I was 18) . I still have that forged form, but also have my Dad's US Army discharge hanging by my own Marine discharge on the living room wall.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 09-19-2023).]
I had a civilian co-worker at the Coast Guard Air Station SFO....We were talking once about WW2 and she was (basically) in tears about how Germany had been destroyed...I told her that I considered that most GERMANS were victims of Hitler and the Nazis...they were gangster THUGS and not a real government....
The Japanese were also misled by their Gov't into believing the "Master Race" BS....
I cannot stand the BS Gov't of China- I try to never buy anything from China- but the Chinese people who have emigrated to the US are the ones that have completely rejected China's corrupt government.
I don't care who you are- what religion/Race/Etc...I judge each person based on their actions....
"False Prophets" and propaganda can mislead people to believe all kinds of crap- I question anything I hear- from ANY source!
Yes. Thanks Don. I salute you. And anyone else who participated.
I don't have a "story". As I posted earlier, I was too young for the 'Nam situation. Never mind the draft. Even registration for the draft was abolished - two weeks before I turned 18. I always felt (still do) strange about that. My brother was old enough (born in '42), but was exempted on medical grounds.
My dad was in France, during the last part of WWII. Must have been among the last to go in, since he was married with two children. (My brother and sister. I wasn't born until '57.) He was a mechanic. Actually drove a "Tank Recovery Vehicle" - essentially a Sherman with a wrecker boom. He went and retrieved disabled tanks - I'm assuming that meant "shot up" as well as just "broke" - and hauled them back in. He never talked much about it (he was always protective of his family), but I can only imagine some of the stuff that he probably saw. The only "war story" that he ever related was the one morning he took off his glasses to shave while standing next to a tank, and placed his glasses on top of the tank's tread. Said the tank drove off and ran over his glasses. He just said that he was thankful he wasn't wearing them at the time.
He remembered hearing about Pearl Harbor on the radio. Said that he and mom were sitting in the living room, reading the Sunday paper when it came on the radio. When I was a kid, it all seemed like ancient history. Still does, but so does stuff that I was around for, so...
I still remember when our teacher told us about JFK being shot. (His actual death was not announced until later, as I recall.) I was in first grade, in Catholic school. I always considered murder - the taking of another life - as the absolute worst thing that someone could do. Of course, we all were shocked. That was my moment of realizing "the end of the innocence".
9/11... I was already 44. Old enough to be quite aware of how crappy the world could potentially be. But this was a whole 'nother level. I was sad (obviously), but angry at the same time. The only thing I was certain of, was that the world would never be the same, going forward. I didn't know exactly what to expect. Nobody did. But I knew. I really almost expected a nuclear response on our part.
[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 09-20-2023).]
Yes, I'm that old.
