November 22, 1963—It was a Friday afternoon. I was a Junior in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park. I was ironing my laundry. A guy I had never seen before walked into my room and said hello. He then said, with a bit of a smile on his face, “Did you hear that Kennedy and his wife were shot in Dallas?” I found the joke very offensive and told him I didn’t think that was funny. His demeanor immediately changed; the smile was gone, and he swore he was telling the truth. He said that three people had stopped him to tell him as he walked across campus. (Looking back on it, he probably had walked through the dorm looking for someone to tell.) He urged me to turn on the radio and hear for myself. I did, and they confirmed Kennedy indeed had been shot in Dallas and taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

The guy left, but I remained glued to the radio. Later that afternoon I heard that Kennedy was dead. Later, it was reported that Jackie and Bobby were escorting the body back to Washington that evening, where it would then be taken to the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda for the autopsy. This was right across the street from the house where I grew up.

I couldn’t just sit there. I wanted to do something to mark the event. I was in the Naval Reserve, so I put on my Navy enlisted uniform and drove home. There, I watched on TV as the casket was loaded from the plane into a Navy ambulance. When the timing seemed right, I walked across the street and about a quarter mile across the grounds to the drive leading to the main entrance of the Medical Center Tower. I reasoned that the ambulance carrying Kennedy would drive up there. In my uniform, I was just another anonymous sailor, albeit not in the medical ratings. Sure enough, no one gave me a second glance. A medical service Lieutenant was hastily organizing a bunch of sailors into an honor guard along the driveway. I just slid into the line. In a while the ambulance, a battleship gray 1963 Pontiac Bonneville, drove past us. On command, we all saluted. I could see the casket in the rear. Jackie and Bobby accompanied it in the vehicle.

Instead of stopping at the main entrance, the ambulance continued on and turned right at the end of the building. Someone said they were probably taking it to the morgue entrance in the rear of the hospital. I broke away from the honor guard formation and went around behind the building and watched sailors carry the casket into the rear entrance.  By then, there was no sign of Jackie or Bobby.

That ended my efforts to “do something” that day.

Two days later (Sunday), I went to see a college friend of mine who lived in a trailer on US 1 a couple of miles north of the University campus. It was around lunch time. He was making something to eat and had his little TV on. Black and white, of course. The big news was that they were moving Lee Harvey Oswald from the city jail to the county lockup. They were televising it live. And right there, right in front of us, live on television, Jack Ruby shoots him. A second nail in the coffin of my youthful innocence.

The Eternal Flame, Arlington National Cemetary