On Patrol With Thomas Jefferson First Blue patrol, North Atlantic. It was 2200 when Captain Rathbun Call the Crew to Attention and read a prepare statement. We knew that something was wrong that day at lunch cause our radiomen had tears in there eyes and could not speak about it. The next few day we were all in a maze wondering when we would be called to war and start"our launch". That is one Patrol no one will forget.

I was a recruiter stationed in Akron, Ohio. I just happened to have the only automobile in the station's inventory that had a radio. I was coming back from a road trip to one of the outlying counties when I heard the news. I broke all speed records getting back to the Akron station so I could tell my shipmates what had happened. They were unaware of the assassination and, at first, didn't believe me. They quickly found out I wasn't lying when the Assistant Postmaster came in with confirmation. We shut down the station and went down to the Portage Hotel where we all drank a toast to JFK. I'll never forget that moment and the 3 days that followed. Good thread.

I was a mess cook at my first duty station, Charleston,. S.C.. The Master at Arms came out while we were on the afternoon break and told us. The lead cook then came out and made everyone start getting ready for the evening meal early. The evening meal was crowded and we almost ran out of food, seems there were a lot of people back on the base "just in case".

We had just finished giving the Blue Crew, of the 611, the boat and as the small boat pulled away from the tender in Holy Lock the XO announce the presidents death. That was the quietest trip back to the states we ever made.

I was in Chemistry class in Nuc school in Bainbridge. 
We worried about the state of the world too. But not with the urgency you guys at sea had. 

I can remember being more worried a few short years later. I was in the dockside bunk house in Charleston Naval Shipyard taking a break. The program on TV was interrupted to announce the shooting of Martin Luther King.

I was an instructor at Radioman school SDiego, Just came out of class when I was notified of the assasination The president had just visited SDiego a couple months before that and my class was one group that marched over to MCRD to meet him. He shook my class-leaders hand, said hello to me..repeated this on down the line and then left. I was very proud that my group had been chosen to meet him...last thing in the world I would have thought about was him being killed a couple months later. I think it started a period of uneasiness in this nation that we have never recovered from.