Remembering the Assassination of John F. Kennedy 60 Years Later: Pondering His Life and Message after Trump

President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas on a sunny November afternoon 60 years ago today. The images of the event and its aftermath in photos and film still haunt us and find themselves etched in our individual and collective memory. The two shots that killed the President were allegedly fired by Lee Harvey Oswald according to the Warren Commission.

I used to believe that Oswald was the lone gunman. That has changed over the years after seeing the pictures of the entrance wound in the neck and the massive exit wound which blew out the back of his skull. I have been associated with trauma and gunshot wounds much of my adult life and as a trauma department chaplain at Parkland Hospital I have seen many such wounds and discussed them with trauma surgeons. Those pictures and the testimony of the doctors who treated President Kennedy lead me to believe that there had to be a second shooter who shot from the front, hitting the President in the in the neck and exiting through the back of the skull. I trust those doctors testimony more than I do the Warren Commission Report. Who that shooter was and who sent him there is unknown and there are many reasonable suspects; the Cubans, the Mafia, the KGB, the CIA and others in our government. I will let others try to make the case for those behind the assassination.

My purpose today is to remember Kennedy’s assassination, a horrible event in the life of our nation and to reflect on how easily something similar could happen again.

Kennedy was not the first President killed by an assassin. Four Presidents of the United States have died by the hand of assassins. The first was Abraham Lincoln killed by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday 1865.  That assassination was carried out by a Southern sympathizer not even a week after Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox. It stunned the nation and certainly altered the course of events following the war.

James A Garfield was the second president to be assassinated. Garfield was shot on July 2nd 1881 by Charles Guiteau.  Guiteau was a disgruntled supporter of Garfield who believed that Garfield was ungrateful for his support. He claimed that God commanded him to kill a the President. I find it interesting that one of our four Presidential assassins was motivated by what he believed God to be saying. During his trial Guiteau testified that some important, but unnamed Europeans told him to do it. Garfield died on September 19th probably due to the incompetence of his doctors. Guiteau died of a broken neck, expertly administered by a hangman after Guiteau danced on the gallows while waving to the crowd awaiting his execution.

The third was President William McKinley. He was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist on September 5th 1901. McKinley died on September 14th once again because of incompetent medical care.

In all over 20 attempts have been made on incumbent or former Presidents. Theodore Roosevelt was wounded by an attempted assassin following his Presidency. John Hinckley Junior nearly killed President Ronald Reagan on March 30th, 1981. President Gerald Ford had two close brushes with female assassins within two weeks in September 1975. More recent attempts have been made on George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush.  A man was arrested for shooting at the White House in November, 2013, However, President Obama was away from Washington during the attack.

Presidential security has increased in the decades since John Kennedy was assassinated, but there is no such thing as perfect security, and there are many more ways for an assassin or team of assassins to kill a President than there were in 1963.

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Of all of our presidents, Kennedy’s assassination tends to be the most talked about and studied. I believe that his assassination left a scar on the country that really hasn’t healed. I remember the effect that his assassination and the subsequent killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had on my parents in the following years. My mother recounted to me how she felt when she heard the news of Kennedy’s death on Armed Forces Radio while we were stationed in the Philippines.  It was an event that shattered the faith and idealism of many Americans.

I remember the times around the anniversary of his assassination when my family would watch television shows about it and the movie PT-109. While I do not have direct memories of President Kennedy’s assassination I do remember those of Dr. King and Senator Kennedy as well as the subsequent attempts on President Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush all too well. Today we watched two documentaries, JFK: One Day in America done by National Geographic and streamed on Hulu, and Barbara Shearer's JFK: What the Doctors Saw, on Paramount Plus. At several of One Day in America, I found myself weeping.

John F Kennedy is still one of my favorite Presidents. I know that he was a deeply flawed man and I do not gloss over his failings either as a man or some of his decisions while President. He was certainly not perfect but I still I admire him.  I think one reason I admire him was his his ability to enunciate ideas that helped shape my more moderately liberal progressive pragmatism. One thing that he said is something that motivates me daily in our divided nation.

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

Unfortunately, though I was a Republican for 34 years, that party is no longer a trustworthy partner because its ideas are destructive to the ideals of the United States, but I digress.

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Kennedy’s wartime service served as an inspiration to my military career.

Kennedy volunteered to serve in combat on PT Boats despite having chronic lower back problems that kept him out of the Army and necessitated a waiver to enter the Navy. His actions in saving his crew after his PT-109 was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands were nothing short of heroic, and his crew knew it. After he his crew was rescued Kennedy elected to remain in action and commanded PT-59 in combat rescuing Marines on Choisuel Island. Kennedy’s citation for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal read:

“For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Theater on August 1–2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

After his rescue Kennedy returned to action commanding PT-59 which though low on fuel was part of a two boat mission to evacuate Marines commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Krulak, (a future Lieutenant General) from Choiseul. He remained in action conduction patrols and engaging Japanese forces until he was ordered to relinquish command for medical reasons on November 18th, 1943 and evacuated to the United States.  He was mentally and physically exhausted from his ordeal and had lost over 25 pounds since the sinking of PT-109.

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Kennedy’s speeches still inspire me. As a child a had a copy of his book Profiles in Courage. I grew up with his promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, the creation of the Peace Corps, his backing of Special Forces, his love of the Navy, and the great “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. I remember his support of the Civil Rights movement, and his courage during the Cuban Missile Crisis all inspire me.  His inauguration speech where he said “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” helped motivate me to serve this country as an Army and Naval Officer.  When I was young John Kennedy symbolized the hope of a country. I wonder so often what things might be like had he lived. Kennedy was a hero, not a perfect man, but a hero.

Kennedy’s wartime service always earned my respect. I tremble when I think that someone would have such a deep hatred of him or for that matter any other President that they would kill or attempt to kill them. That kind of hatred goes beyond me.

Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald was a small and pathetic man who needed to be a revolutionary.  Oswald needed to be important and failing all else he killed the President. Unfortunately there are people like Oswald on all sides of the political, ideological and religious spectrum today who would gladly trade the life of a President or any other public figure for their moment in the spotlight and need to demonstrate their importance to the world.

I fear for our country because of the intense hatred that has become part and parcel of our political landscape. The hatred toward directed toward President Joe Biden and the many threats made against his life and person are chilling. As I looked for images for this article I found pictures of Kennedy’s body after the assassination and they shook me. I have seen far too much in the way of violent and senseless death. Thus I do pray for the safety of President Biden as well as all of our leaders and for God to protect us from ourselves and those so possessed by hatred and their own self righteousness that they would commit such an abominable act.

But I don’t believe that we should be governed by fear or and to embrace the future, in fact we must fight for the future and not retreat to the mythical past of Trump’s “Make America Great Again”. Kennedy said:

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?”

Likewise I still believe in Kennedy’s call to action:

“Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’, a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.” 

In our dangerous world it seems that Kennedy’s call to “bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty” is antithetical to what much of the Republican Party and its leader, Donald Trump, whose “America First”, movement proclaim. They encourage anti-democratic, despotic, and aggressive countries that seek to destroy the United States, invade or threaten U.S. Allies, friends and supporters, while at the same time undermining or harming our allies and those who support democracy and human rights. Please know, it grieves me to say this about a party that I belonged to for 34 years.

Likewise, it seems to be completely opposite of our supremely individualistic, consumer oriented, and entertainment based culture where little is asked and men like Trump denigrate military personnel because in his transactional world, there is no profit in sacrifice or service. Of course, he is not alone, there are plenty or political, business, and religious leaders from across the spectrum who practice, preach, and legislate this worldview. But, once again, I digress.

As I reflect, I remember the President whose life was cut short by the bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. I pray that such an event will never happen again.

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