ASK NOT
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
President John F. Kennedy
That November day dawned just like the ones before them. Everyone was looking forward to a few days off from school for the up and coming holiday. Sitting in my high school class with the rest of my classmates, little did we know that later that day, our lives, some more than others, would change forever. Office Machines class, which probably doesn't exist today, was second to the last period of the day. Our teacher, Mr. Kirkpatrick, who somehow resembled Alfred Hitchcock, was summoned out of class. A few minutes later he returned and spoke the words: "The President has just been shot." How could that have happened? Who did it? Why? We had so many questions. Dismissed from school, I returned home to find my family in front of the television set. It was a sad day when Walter Cronkite reported, indeed, the President was confirmed dead.
It's been 40 years since that day, November 22, 1963. As fate would have it, we teenagers at the time, found in the ensuing years, that our youth, hundreds of thousands of them gave some, and over 58,000 gave all... for their country.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord
And let the perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace, Amen.