Assassination

Assassination is such a strange word and so extreme a violent and calculated act of murder. I was living in Japan when President Kennedy was assassinated. We were awakened by a neighbor knocking on our door to tell us the shocking news the President had been shot. We waited to hear more and said prayers. We learned much later President Kennedy had died from a gunshot wound to the head. I will never forget that day. It was a gray day much like today in Dallas. Somber. Frightening. Sad. Why would someone do such a thing? I felt sick to my stomach. At a young age, I realized the world was not a safe place if someone would kill the President of our country.
The Japan Times printed a one page paper (in English) with what little they knew had happened. It was hard to be so far away from home and to know so little. Japanese television had one clip of the motorcade and repeated it over and over again. That was all we saw. There was a heavy cloud of uncertainty and lots of speculation about what happened, who did it, and what the future held for our country.
We returned to the States the following summer and learned how much news had been shown on television here. We missed it all. There was a big gap in our experience of what had happened by having just that one page to read. We had been isolated by living nearly half a globe away with the limited information of early technology. We learned most of America had been gathered around their TV sets for a week and that Americans joined together and mourned their loss as an entire country. No one had any credible answers then and sadly we still don't today, 45 years later.