NOVEMBER 8, 1960 - NOVEMBER 22, 1963.....THE LEGACY OF THE 35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.....JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY..........

Fifty years and two weeks ago today, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was narrowly elected over Richard Milhous Nixon, as President of the United States.  The first, and only Catholic to be elected to the White House in American history, he was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, on January 20, 1961.  Fated to have but 1,036 days to govern as the Chief Executive of the American nation, his Presidency was a transforming time of idealism and new possibilities for the USA and the World.  Compared to the popular Broadway show and movie of time, "Camelot", the youthfulness, spirit, and hope, the young President in his forties, and his thirty something wife, and their children, exuded permeated not only North America, but peoples around the globe. The Cold War, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Construction of the Berlin Wall, The Vietnam War, as well as the evolving Civil Rights Movement and the push for Medicare, the creation of the Peace Corps, were all issues and needs the Kennedy Administration had to contend with in its two years, ten months, and two days in government.  The promise and potential of the man and his governance were never to be realized, as on this day - November 22, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot down in Dallas, Texas by an assassin's bullets.  He was 46 years old.  What his successes or failures at achieving greater progress for America and the World would have been we can only surmise.  But the inspiration he fired up in a generation plus of citizens here and aboard, to make a positive difference continues to shine in the pantheon of Presidents who have made a lasting impression.  The culminating words of his Inaugural Address speak to that inspiration and idealism, as much today as they did fifty years ago - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?"..........In Remembrance,   Fr.  Troy