I was just chatting with Mark about our memories of that time, so long ago. Both Mark and I are 58. I was in 3rd grade, Mrs Hunts class at Chandler Hill Elementary School in Charleston, West Virginia. It was recess, the called us into the building early and told us the news over the intercom. It was a big deal, some folks seemed sad and some folks actually seemed happy, but is a little while everyone turned equally sad. They sent us home early from school. All during that weekend the TV was focused on the crime and the aftermath and the Oswald was shot, on live TV, and by Sunday us kids had had enough. Some kids from that time confuse the Cuban Missile Crisis with Kennedys assassination. The Cuba deal was in October of 1962 and the shooting was in November of 1963. The Cuba deal was memorable because a lot of schools sent students home early because WW3 was expected to start at any moment and the media had noticed a kind of informal evacuation of D.C. was happening in the final days of the crisis. The military was telling Kennedy to attack the Russians with nukes first, a pre-emptive strike, and Kennedy resisted. The military expected Kennedy to approve so they were getting ready. People all up and down the eastern part of the U.S. knew something was up, a teacher at school told us that the bombs were going to fall and that the only safe place was the cellar but I thought he said that the bombs were in the cellar so i was in the basement of the building where my family lived and looked for the bombs. I was pretty sure I had found one of them but then, like kids, we all just went outside and played, after all it was a nice day and we had a whole afternoon to play. Fortunately Kennedy told the generals that their plan sucked and then he did a secret deal with the Russians and everything worked out peacefully. There is also the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in April of 1961. the U.S. came close to nuclear war then too but we had no idea that Castro had plans to use his secret Russian nukes against America, if we had openly invaded as the C.I.A. wanted Kennedy to, but again Kennedy said no. That wasnt really something I remember, I guess I was busy playing.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:56:15 +0000
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