The letter I sent:
Dear Mrs. Appleton,
I am doing a project in my history class and we are told to write a
e-mail to some one who was about 10 when former president Kennedy was
shot. What I know about the shooting was that Kennedy was riding in a open
top limousine, down the street in Dallas, Texas. They were riding along
and at 12:30pm he got shot. 3 shots were fired 1st one missed, 2end hit
him in the upper back which also hit the governor and 3rd caused a fist
size whole in his head. It is believed that Lee Harvey Oswald killed
Kennedy alone, using a rifle.
Lee Harvey Oswald propped up his rifle with 2 or 3 boxes. He committed
the crime from the 6th floor of a school book depository that he was
working at. He left the seen and killed a police officer. Then was later
found in movie theater. He was killed leaving a jail.
I would like to know what you remember about the assassination of
Kennedy. Did you think it was a lone gunman or conspiracy assassination.
How do you feel the murder impacted the country? Could you tell what you
remember about the assassination?
Thank you very
much,
Kayla DeRaps
Reply I Got:
Hi Kayla,
the Kennedy assasination was one of those signal moments that was so
shocking that one always remembers like a snapshot photo where you were
and what you were doing when you heard the news. I was in junior high at
the time changing up after gym class at the end of the day. Suddenly we
all heard a radio report broadcast over the intercom saying that Kennedy
had been shot and minutes later that he had been declared dead at the
hospital in Dallas. The idea that anyone would attempt to shoot our
president was so totally foreign that the news reports seemed
unbelievable. No president had been assasinated in living memory. Millions of us felt that we had had a relative murdered. The rumors and stories flew. It was hard to know what to believe. it was reassuring that the authorities captured the murderer, but the theory of a lone gunman did not make a lot of sense. I still do not know what to believe about the events leading up to that day. For me the world changed on that day. Suddenly public figures were fair game for gunmen who did not want to bother with a ballot box. In short order after John Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King Junior was gunned down on a motel balcony, and Bobby Kennedy was murdered on a convention stage. Riots , marches and demonstrations became the order of the day. It was a long long time before trust and belief in normalcy were restored.
Mrs. Appleton
the Kennedy assasination was one of those signal moments that was so
shocking that one always remembers like a snapshot photo where you were
and what you were doing when you heard the news. I was in junior high at
the time changing up after gym class at the end of the day. Suddenly we
all heard a radio report broadcast over the intercom saying that Kennedy
had been shot and minutes later that he had been declared dead at the
hospital in Dallas. The idea that anyone would attempt to shoot our
president was so totally foreign that the news reports seemed
unbelievable. No president had been assasinated in living memory. Millions of us felt that we had had a relative murdered. The rumors and stories flew. It was hard to know what to believe. it was reassuring that the authorities captured the murderer, but the theory of a lone gunman did not make a lot of sense. I still do not know what to believe about the events leading up to that day. For me the world changed on that day. Suddenly public figures were fair game for gunmen who did not want to bother with a ballot box. In short order after John Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King Junior was gunned down on a motel balcony, and Bobby Kennedy was murdered on a convention stage. Riots , marches and demonstrations became the order of the day. It was a long long time before trust and belief in normalcy were restored.
Mrs. Appleton
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