Innocence, hope missing after assassination
When JFK died, it is said, so did our innocence. I think that’s true. I was a sophomore at St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. That event has haunted me since that awful announcement came over the loudspeaker at our school notifying us that our President had been shot. I remember some students and teachers crying, and it turned out that there was much to cry about.
It wasn’t long after the assassination that the Warren Commission came out with their report on the killing of our president. Its conclusion was that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Over time a large percentage of Americans have questioned the story told to us by our government.
Personally, I can say that I’ve lost faith in our government. My faith was shaken by our long and costly involvement in Vietnam and by the Watergate scandal. We as a nation seemed to have gone off the rails following the assassination of JFK, and a short five years later, we were witnessing even more bloodshed with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of President Kennedy.
The optimism and hope that JFK offered has never been realized. Each president since Kennedy has been plagued with scandals. We have seen the rich getting richer and the poor and middle class being attacked and left behind.
The American people deserve the truth of what really happened in Dallas. We are so far from where we were on Nov. 22, 1963, that it’s difficult to fully comprehend how bad things have gotten. JFK offered hope in his words, actions and policies. He is still missed today!
Bill Sarto
Carpentersville