A Day with JFK (Page 2) Remembering the Day JFK was Shot and Killed

"While reading your account of the day you photographed him and heard him speak, I almost felt as if I was there too. I know you will never forget that day. The day JFK was killed I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news and my reaction and the reactions of those around me. I was in my 5th grade English class. It wasn't long after lunch that someone knocked on the door of our classroom and she was crying. A child asked her what was wrong, and then she told us our president had been shot and had died. The room was very quiet for a few moments, and then the sound of sobbing filled that little room. Our teacher asked us to bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer and we did. The rest of the afternoon I don't think anyone had their minds on school. I remember the TV coverage of the funeral and those precious young children, John John and Caroline standing with their mother. As John John saluted his father's cortege as it passed, I remember being so touched and tried to imagine how it must feel to lose a parent at such a young age. Like you, I admired Kennedy and feel his influence will always be with us. He was a good man."-- Denise Benson, Batesville, Mississippi

"I remember well where I was the day Kennedy was shot. I was a new junior transfer student to Heber Springs High School and had come home for lunch. Mother and I were watching some show on TV when they interrupted the program to say that the President had been shot in Dallas. After several more reports and some live feeds from Dallas, mother called the school to let them know that I would not be returning to class and the reason why. At first the front office did not believe or understand what she was saying. In 1998, after both my father and mother had passed away, we were going through their house in Heber Springs preparing for an auction of those items the family did not need. I found several U.S. flags, each in a box with a note about their significance. One of those flags was the one that flew over Greers Ferry Dam at the time of the dedication by President Kennedy. There are many requests for flags that fly over government buildings and as each flag is retired, it is given to someone requesting a flag. This flag stayed with my father, George R. Cotton, who retired as superintendent at Greers Ferry Dam. His connection with the Greers Ferry project started a few months before the dedication ceremony. This flag was taken down and stored shortly after Kennedy's death, and was in storage until 1998 until I found it with the note written by my mother stating its place in history."-- George Cotton, Russellville, Arkansas

"It was routine business that day in November in the Security Office for the Naval Weapons Station and Polaris Missile Facility Atlantic. We took pride in being in the first-line of defense for America and the mother base for loading out the Polaris carrying submarines, even then on patrol somewhere under the seas and ready to strike if the Soviets wanted World War III. I was the Security Administrator at my desk when the station Chief of Police burst in and said, 'President Kennedy has been shot.' We turned on additional radios to see if this announcement was a hoax, but every radio station was carrying the news. I called my wife at home and told her to turn on the television. We soon were on heightened alert on orders from Washington, but this was rescinded later in the evening. When the news first reached us it was as if our role in national defense was over. Many of us believed that if the balloon went up, the Polaris missiles had to be at sea and ready to fire. There would be no time to load out submarines once the unthinkable became the actual. As the afternoon wore on into the early evening, the question still remained: Was it the Soviets, or far-right kooks, like those who had driven U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson from Texas, only a short while before?"--Francis X. Archibald, Charleston, South Carolina