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| Super Mac & JFK [1961] |
The Kennedy
Myth of Camelot: The commonly accepted portrayal of President John F. Kennedy's 34 months in office
is the Jack
and Jackie Myth of Camelot. This Camelot
Myth has been and continues to be widely and regularly reinforced by books, television, film and
media pundits.Democrat politicians try to create the persona that they are the second coming of John F. Kennedy (JFK),
their wives are Jackie, and their children are current versions of Caroline and little "John-John."
When polled, most Americans
pick JFK as their most loved president.
These same folks readily embrace and perpetuate the misty
Once Upon a Time Kennedy
Fairytale mystique of magnetically
handsome King John and elegantly beautiful Queen Jacqueline reigning for that “one brief, shining moment that was known
as Camelot.”
John was no handsome king and Jackie no beautiful queen. Being rich and famous makes a person neither a king
or a queen or handsome or beautiful. However, being rich on Daddy
Joe' Kennedy's money does permit buying the services of people who are skilled in image making and public relations.
When John's schoolboy chums laid eyes on him they nicknamed him Ratface.
So how was, and who made over and transformed, a not-so-handsome Boston Irish Prince nicknamed "Ratface"
into a "handsome King of Camelot?"
The
answer: Team Camelot! There are
professionals who for a price can, as the old saw goes, "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse" or a ratfaced
prince into a handsome king. They were and are Team Camelot Myth.
Eye-to-Eye with the Other Eye of the One-Eyed
Jack of Camelot: The political traditions of my family are that of
hard-core, FDR worshipping, Great Depression Democratics. All my family member role models loved
FDR, Truman, Stevenson and Kennedy. If their are Democrats...they love them.
I
was born in the same Chicago Southside ethnic neighborhood that Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley was born in and called home. Chicago's
King Richard resided just blocks away, and was our City Alderman before being elected Mayor
of Chicago. When Democrat Adlai Stevenson, The Man From Libertyville, ran against IKE, my family
lived in the Libertyville, IL area of the Chicago Suburbs. They lov-v-v-ed The Man From Libertyville.
In
spite of my formative cradle-to-puberty immersion in things Democrat, I was never caught up in the 1960's Kennedy Mystique of Camelot. Maybe it's because, as a teenager,
I saw the other eye of the One-Eyed Jack of Camelot when he reneged on his promise to the Cuban counter-revolutionaries
on the Bay of Pigs [Bahia de Cochinos]. I was living in the Florida Straits just 90 miles from Cuba,
and saw King Jack place a blind eye on and turn his royal
back on the Bay of Pigs counter-revolutionary exiles Invasion Force, over
night at the eleventh hour on April 17, 1961.
Maybe it's because I also saw Jack Kennedy up close,
and in the flesh. I got to look into both of his eyes from two military paces away as he met and greeted England’s Prime Minister Harold MacMillan
as he was deplaning at U.S. Naval Air Station Boca Chica Field, Florida
in 1961 for a meeting at the Little White House in Key West.
As
the fates would have it, in 1961 I was an off-duty teenaged sailor boy snoozing in my upper bunk in Barracks 626 at NAS
Boca Chica. I was sleeping during the daytime because I was working Night Check (2nd Shift) down
at the squadron. Sailors are known to say, "If you snooze, you loose." Well, that fatefull day I was snoozing and
the Chief Master at Arms woke me out of REM sleep to press-gang me into last minute service as one of the
ceremonial side boys stationed at the foot of the aircraft ground ramp stairs for the arriving Prime Minister.
This up-close-and-personal
ceremonial side boy duty gave me a very close look at both men, as President Kennedy met and greeted the disembarking British
Prime Minister MacMillan. They greeted each other at the foot of the aircraft ramp stairs in world
leader style, pausing together as they shoke hands, smile for the gathered crowd and to give the Press a photo-op.
However,
it was not JFK who impressed me. It was MacMillan. I saw no sign of the fabled Camelot
aura of magnetic charisma around Kennedy. When I viewed both from my two paces, Navy side boy
distance away, it was the 67 year old First Earl of Stockton who was awe-inspiring.
Super Mac looked Super and carried and comported himself in the English gentleman style of Masterpiece Theatre’s Alistair Cooke. Super
Mac had steely eyes, a silvery shock of gray hair and a clear, healthy and near translucent skin complexion.
My wife would give her eye-teeth for the translucent skin complexion that MacMillan had.
44 year old Kennedy was some 20 years younger
then MacMillan, but the President appeared very unhealthy, very thin and looked pedestrian. He looked nothing like his
official Whitehouse portraits-photos, portrait depictions, TV-News Film portrayals or how John Kennedy was made to look and
appear to the Nation on National Television with the help of skillfully applied, heavy TV makeup. History records that
when JFK won the Kennedy-Nixon Debates he was cosmetically enhanced with TV pan makeup by one of the country's best television
makeup artists.
Jack Kennedy did have a fully rooted, thick shock
of brown Irish hair, but it was not the remarkably reddish auburn brown color depicted
in most of his portraits. I viewed JFK at midday in bright Florida
sunshine, and did not see the reddish auburn hair color depicted in portraits or in enhanced colored imagery of him.
In the bright sunlight from my six feet away, his facial skin appeared severely weathered and very unhealthy looking. This
apparently was the result of a lifetime of poor health, and over exposure to the sun.
The look and coloration of the King of
Camelot, was not that of the attractive masculine bronzed-weathered Madison Avenue
Marlborough Man. Rather JFK's skin had a sun-damaged, freckled, liver-spotted
light yellowish brown to grayish brown leathery look and color that hinted at jaundice. The skin surface was textured
all over with many small micro-wrinkles that brought to mind the skin texture found on the bellies of Key West's geckos.
The glowing, magnetic
charisma JFK was reportedly famous for imparting and radiating to bystanders was not irradiating me at my
two military paces stand-off distance.
I realize that this personal experience data
point of mine flies in the face of the mental imagery most people have of Jack and Jackie and the
the media continue to perpetuate. JFK still polls as America's
most loved and adored President. So I know that my contrarian
view is probably viewed by Kennedy worshippers as somewhat heretical and blasphemous.
Clearly, my life experience does not align
with the media's Once Upon a Time...Kennedy Gospel misty fairytale image of a charismatic, magnetically handsome King John, and his elegantly beautiful Queen Jacqueline
who reigned for that "one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot"
I trust these opening paragraphs fired your interest
and/or your Kennedy Irish up, as applicable. My intent is not to expostulate the Kennedy
true-believers in their beliefs about JFK because I know that true Kennedy believers truly believe
the Kennedy Myth. I only want to collegially share my single All-American Blue Jacket's data
point about the John F. Kennedy I saw and experienced for "one brief, shining moment..."
there at on the tarmac ramp at Boca Chica Field.
These remembrances and musings of mine about
Cuba of the late '50s and early '60s, President Kennedy and the Kennedy-Johnson
Administration and JFK’s Vietnam
legacy are drawn from my personal mémoire and supported by historical facts.
My brief, shining Camelot Odyssey
may not marry up with the commonly accepted generously heroic, royal and gentlemanly portrayal of Jack and Jackie's
Camelot, but it happened to me as I have and will be reporting here. It is
this rag hatted All American Bluejacket sailor's view of JFK's
Camelot and Vietnam Legacy as I lived and remember them during that one brief, shining moment
when I got a peek at the Other Eye of the One-Eyed Jack of Camelot.
| White House Portico |

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| McNamara Chatting With Kennedy |
The Albatross of JFK’s Vietnam War Plans & Defense Team: The flywheel effect of FDR’s 1930’s Depression Era Democratic-Socialism
continued into and through the wartime and post-war 1940’s into the transitional 1950’s with Truman. Truman was followed by Eisenhower.
DEmocrat Truman’s 1953 Korean Police Action ruffled the citizenry so much, U.S. citizens Liked Republican
IKE more making him President, and letting the good General get us into advising, policing and taking over the
failed French Indo-China (Vietnam) War from the Colonial French in 1959.
Yes, it was ole Likeable IKE who, by sending a couple hundred advisers into
Vietnam, stuck
OUR collective toe into the Communist Domino Swamp created by the Colonial
French. He did this ostensibly to assist the democracy inclined South Vietnamese and the French in draining it.
John F. Kennedy’s Camelot of the revolutionary
early 1960’s was highlighted by:
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President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara’s secret, stealth
Vietnam war escalation plans developed after taking office. These secret war plans were keyed to gradually escalating our
involvement in Vietnam, and then directly
after John F. Kennedy ran for president and won his second term in the 1964 Elections, significantltly escalating U.S. military
involvement;
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President Kennedy approved the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion directly after being sworn in to Reign over
Camelot, only to renege upon his promise less than 90-days later at the Invasion's
Eleventh Hour;
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President
Kennedy's Cuban Crisis nuclear brinkmanship war games with Khrushchev,
after which Kennedy and Khrushchev bothed blinked, and the U.S. agree to
remove their forward deployed ballistic missiles out of Turkey with Russia
agreeing to remove their missiles from Cuba.
After Senator John Kennedy won the 1960 Election and was sworn into office, he went forward
with escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam from
IKE’s hundreds of Military Advisors to JFK’s
tens of thousands Combat Unit troop levels. President Kennedy's military escalation immersed
our collective derrières ever deeper into the communist swamp that was teaming with NVA-VC
alligators. This war escalation action of our most
loved president caused us to forget that ole Likable IKE’s original intention
was only to advise and assist the South Vietnamese in draining the communist swamp using the CIA
and Special Forces military advisors, but not to fight the war for them.
Directly after taking office in January 1961, the Kennedy-McNamara Defense Team escalated
our involvement in Vietnam, and went to work developing a Post 1964 Election Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation
Plan.
34 months later, as a result of JFK’s Assassination, LBJ inherited JFK’s
Vietnam War Escalation "Albatross" consisting of JFK’s Department of Defense and State Team,
and the SECRET Kennedy-McNamara
Post-1964 Election, Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation Plan. To his later regret, President Lyndon Johnson
decided to accept, embrace and directly execute implemention of this Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation
Plan developed by Kennedy, McNamara and Rusk.
LBJ juggled the Kennedy
Vietnam War Escalation "Hot
Potato" as he continued raising troop levels to the hundreds of thousands called out
in the Kennedy-McNamara Vietnam War Plan. LBJ’s embracing and implementation of JFK’s Vietnam War Plan is what
got us deeply immersed in the military muck and mire of that communist domino swamp teaming with
NVA-VC alligators.
By 1968 there were over 500,000
troops in the Vietnam combat theater. Not the original Likeable IKE style swamp draining
CIA and military advisors solution, but rather multiple hundreds of thousands of teenager and 20-Something Camelot
alligator hunters delivering multiple mega-tonnage of ordnance to the NVA-VC bullet-by-bullet,
mortar-by-mortar and bomb-by-bomb. President Eisenhower's original swamp
draining advisor approach was clearly supplanted by the JFK-McNamara Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat,
full-scale war escalation plans, which President Johnson signed on to and followed chapter and verse.
The failed results from the fatally flawed Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat Kennedy-McNamara
War Plans, that LBJ inherited and Johnson-McNamara implemented, caused the incumbent Johnson to
sit out Election 1968. Johnson’s decision not to run set up Nixon’s
election win over Vice President Humphrey. Nixon
was not able to beat Kennedy in 1960, but the legacy of the King of Camelot's
own Vietnam War Escalation Plans led to Johnson bowing out resulting in Nixon
winning the 1968 and 1972 Elections.
On January 23, 1973, three days after his second inauguration, Republican Nixon
went forward initialing-signing the Paris Peace Accords that ended American combat in Vietnam. The U.S.
military draft ended four days later with a cease-fire going into effect the day after that, on January 28. Five months later,
on July 1, 1973, Nixon
signed the Democrat Congress crafted legislation that gave birth to the exploitive, non-egalitarian U.S. All-Volunteer Military
(AVM) war-fighting organization we live with today.
These are the down-the-slope Vietnam
War tailings of King John's Camelot. John Kennedy, and his war escalation
plan legacy the escalated our involvement in Vietnam from Eisenhower's few hundred CIA and Special Forces military and
political advisors in 1960, to multiple hundreds of thousands of Regular Combat Armed Forces Under Arms in the field a
few years later.
The 15+ year military action was finally
formally brought to a dishonorable rather than an honorable end under President Ford, twelve
years after Kennedy's death. This event occurred on April
29, 1975, at the precise moment the wheels of U.S. Ambassador Martin’s helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The very next day, Saigon fell to
the Communist and became Hồ Chí Minh City.
While I recognize that the flesh & blood Jack Kennedy only spent 34 months
as USCINC, JFK's spectre and his Team Camelot Departments of Defense and State carried
forth his Vietnam War Escalation Plans and Legacy into, and through the Johnson Administration. Lyndon Johnson's Secretaries
of Defense and State, McNamara and Rusk, were Kennedy's Camelot Cabinet
Faithful. Even after Kennedy's death, they continued serving their King of Camelot
in those same Cabinet-level roles throughout the Johnson Administration, and until
the Kennedy-Johnson-McNamara-Rusk Administration ended in 1968.
In
1968 U.S. Combat Armed Forces troop strength was approaching ~540,000
with
14,000+ Americans killed in combat and 150,000 wounded that year.
Kennedy-Johnson-McNamara's macho,
Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat, war plans caused us to wade derrière deep into
the black-water communist domino swamp for the eight years of 1960-1969. In 1969, Nixon-Kissinger
commenced their Give-Away-the-Store Desert & Depart Defense Policy and back-pedaled
us out of Vietnam in a bit less then eight more. However, my personal Bushido Code causes
me to become sickened each time I view the History Channel or other historic news footage showing the teaming, scurrying
and terror-stricken South Vietnamese and Cambodian masses of civilian families Nixon, Congress and the majority Citizen Herd
left flapping in the breeze in 1973-1975.
To me there there is no personal or national honor in abandoning defenseless
civilians and comrades-in-arms to NVA-VC alligators.
Now Hear This! Now Hear This! All "Rag Hats" Lay Down
To Personnel: By a SECRET Mid-Summer
1963 military message FROM: U. S. Commander-In-Chief JFK, SUBJ: Volunteers For Inter-Service Transfer,
nominally addressed TO: All [High IQ/GCT-ARI] Hands, JFK
covertly tried to get me and my Twenty Something Hi-IQ
Navy Rag Hat Shipmates to volunteer to do an Inter-Service
Transfer from the Navy into the Army to be trained as pilots to fly helicopters in Vietnam, in the King
of Camelot's AIR CAV/AIRMOBILE Air Cavalry.
This in-service planning was an early integral element of JFK’s overall stealth war escalation and expansion plans. By moving human assets between services, President
Kennedy could rapidly escalate the Vietnam War, directly after his expected landslide reelection in November 1964. John Kennedy wanted to be sure
he was ready to hit the ground running when he was inaugurated in 1965. This Inter-Service Transfer
of active duty service members (from the Navy into the Army) in 1963, permitted President Kennedy to shift existing
in-service, active duty head-counts of proven G.I. human asset inventories between services to get a quick 18-24 month
pilot training turn-around.
Using this approach, JFK planned to rapidly expand the U.S. Army’s Air
Cavalry/Air Mobility capability Just-in-Time to put the war-escalation-pedal-to-the-metal
following his second inauguration in January 1965.
Use of this stealth, in-house approach permitted JFK
to fly-under-Congress’-radar during the pre-1964 Election Cycle. This kept him from having
to go to Congress to request increases in military head-counts, extra funding and to get the permission of Congress to raise
active duty troop strength ceilings. Using stealthy Jack's in-house,
Inter-Service Transfer approach meant no increase in military voluteer recruiting and draft quotas were
required .
Any public announcement of
increasing the number of draftees or a build-up of troop strengths during the 1964 Election Cycle, would have drawn much political flack from the voting
public and the Republicans.
JFK’s back-channel recruiting
was not the highly publicized Ask Not What Your Country
Can Do For You, But Ask What You Can Do For Your Country Public Peace Corps P.R., so
heavily touted by Camelot myth-lovers. Rather, it was a SECRET solicitation of in-inventory, active duty volunteers
to create a Stealth War Escalation Corps so:
JFK Could Do With You What He Wants For The Country, While You Get
“Do’ed” For Your Country.
The Camelot myth-building electronic and print media have left these aspects of JFK’s Vietnam War escalation actions and legacy un-reported, just
like their Good Ole Boys Club wink and a nod cover up of President
Kennedy's multiple serial adulterous affairs.
Rock, Paper, Scissors…Forget It…Estrogen Overrides
Testosterone: I was a freshly turned Twenty Something,
and had just celebrated one year of husband-hood. As an invincible
minded, naïve young man with a testosterone marinated brain, I felt the Red, White and Blue silk scarf of AIR CAV/AIRMOBILE
combat aviation flapping in my face.
I petitioned my young
bride saying, “Darling, please let me volunteer for this. It will mean a five level promotion, and a lot
more money.” Now my Bride-For-Life has never been one to turn up her nose at
mo' money, but the prospect of my five-level elevation in rank to Army Warrant Officer, and
its attendant five grade level pay increase did nothing to entice or sway my wise and estrogen-enriched young Lady of the Manor who has always been wise beyond her years in such
matters.
She quickly responded, “NO,
I WON’T PERMIT IT!!!” I tell you, when that woman says, “NO!!!” she really
means “NO!!!” No amount of testosterone launched But
Honey, Come Ons, could have overridden such an Estrogen Edict. My young
Bride of one year had spoken, and that was that.
Thanks to my young Bride, my
Aunties Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis,
Chief Hatuey of NAS GITMO, and later on through
the good graces of my benevolent Nautilus King Neptune on Terra Firma, Hymie Rickover, I was spared
to live, think, get well educated and fight in the Vietnam War another Navy day.
If I had answered JFK’s
mid 1963 Camelot Call-to-Arms,
the 18-24 month advanced Army combat and flight training cycle would likely have landed me in Vietnam as a new shave-tail
Army AIR-CAV helicopter pilot plank owner in the 1st Cavalry Division [Airmobile]. 1st Cavalry Division [Airmobile] was offically
activated on July 1, 1965, some 24-months after President Kennedy's SECRET CINCJFK "Camelot Call To Arms" INTER-SERVICE
TRANSFER ALL HANDS message.
1st CAV AIRMOBILE formally moved their colors onto the field at Doughboy Stadium at Fort
Benning, Georgia, July 3rd 1965. Main units of the 1st CAV AIRMOBILE arrived
at Qui Nhon-Cam Rahn Bay by sea 12 - 13 September 1965, some 26 months after I had read the SECRET CINCJFK INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER message.
My
1965 arrival in Vietnam would have been JIT: Just in Time for Death
from the Sky Flying and Fighting over, through, in and around garden spots like:
Ia Drang Valley, Pleiku, Suoi Ca and Duc Co. These
locales are where some of Vietnam’s
bloodiest Airborne-Ground Battles were fought, and would have made me a prime, high-probability candidate for:
*Camelot*Cannon*Fodder* or
Body
Bag ~ Booty Duty.
| CLICK HELO FOR: 1st Cavalry Airmobile History |
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| Born 19650701; Baptized By Fire 19651010 |

Saved By The Star-Crossed
Team Poliakon: Reflecting on these events two score plus a few more years later, I now can see what my young
June Bride clearly saw through her young estrogen enriched eyes, back in 1963. Namely, just what the TRUE
meaning and implication of the term INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER in JFK’s
1963 Camelot Call-to-Arms message really was.
JFK’s INTER-SERVICE
TRANSFER was more then a simple INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER
between Armed Forces, as my testosterone saturated brain-ware incorrectly computed back then.
Rather, it was really an invitation to volunteer for the chance to be INTERRED,
with full military ceremonial honors and religious rites and SERVICES,
followed by a flag covered TRANSFER into a G.I. sized burial plot in
GEN Lee's front lawn.
Looking back on it today, I say, “HOO-AH!!! Watashi, that sure was
a close one for you in 1963.”
INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER: On our first Honeymoon night together at
the Thunderbird
Motel, I whispered a lover's
whisper "Darling, you're my Lucky Charm," into the ear of my maiden June bride. At the time, I did not know the flawless Diamond Gem Quality Level of Charmed
Luck my new bride would bring to me in just 12 months. Even my three Fateful Moirae Aunties were impressed with her real-time fate assessment and management
skills.
As things turned
out, I can thank my lucky stars that a Star-Crossed Team headed by my June-Bride-For-Life with
my Aunties Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis
as assisting X-X members, and my GITMO shipmate, Chief Hatuey: Cacique of Cuba’s
Taíno Tribe. Chief Hatuey was the team's lone X-Y consultant-rep. He was there to supply
thec ounterbalancing testosteronal cubano ingles that the otherwise
estrogen-fueled Star-Crossed Team Poliakon needed.
My Shipmate-For-Life,
Chief Hatuey: In 1961, I was a teenaged Petty Officer assigned to the Air Group on
the USS Randolph (CVS-15). Rando Can Do, CVS-15, was tied up out in Guantanamo Bay for
some On-Base-GITMO Crew Liberty. Being a red-blooded All American Bluejacket, I took advantage of
the liberty opportunity, and hit-the-beach.
I chose to enjoy my on-base-liberty by relaxing and recreating at the Acey Duecey
Club located on a point that overlooked the bay near the Guantanamo [GTMO] Bay base's air field. It was the bartender
at that club who formally introduced me to Chief Hatuey, Cacique of Cuba’s Taíno
Tribe, for the very first time.
After greeting me with "Hola
marinero," the next thing the good Chief said was "Un Indio y dos canoas" [translated
- an Indian and two canoes]. This is because the proper and traditional way to order a Hatuey (i.e. Indian)
is with two glasses (i.e. canoes) so that that Cerveza brew can be shared with
a shipmate.
Then and there, at that
breezy point located bayside on Guantanamo
Bay, this one-eyed Salvaje cubano became
my drinking buddy and Shipmate-For-Life.
We enjoyed Happy
Hour priced, 20¢ a bottle, chilled
Cerveza cubana india as we sat behind a growing pile of expired brown-amber
glass Taíno Tribesmen,
and watched glowing purple-orange sunsets descending down the backside of black silhouetted ridges across GITMO
Bay. I became the good Chief's Kemo Sabe and Shipmate-For-Life there
at GITMO, and the good Chief became mine. Years later, in 1963, he would prove himself to be the truest and most loyal Kemo
Sabe Shipmate this sailor ever had.
| Chief Hatuey |

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| Shipmate-in-Chief |
| Diamond Gem Quality |

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| Lucky Charm-For-Life |
When my Shipmate-in-Chief would see that I was approaching my Cuban cerveza limit, he would slowly start winking that squinty left eye of his at me. This was his secret Indian sign to let me know it was time for me to push away from the grog-veza and weigh
anchor. After acting as if I did not see those first few Chief Hatuey
left eyewinks, I finally would relent. I would drink up, straighten out my sea legs, hitch up my 13 button trousers, button
down my fire-breathing green dragon embroidered cuffs, screw on my Dixie Cup
Rag Hat, and set a course for the ship. I commenced walking an All American Blue Jacket bell-bottomed sailor’s
grog-veza enhanced swagger to get a ride in the "Cattle Car" from the club back to the
fleet-landing quay to catch a liberty launch returning to the ship anchored out in the bay.
If the Ole Chief and I had a particularly
grog-veza consuming evening, I would glide a gob’s glide
back to the ship’s gangway with my feet, not ten feet off Beale, but rather two fathoms above the quay.
Permission to come aboard? Permission granted.
WHAT A SHIPMATE!

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| Kennedy Grave Site Arlington Cemetery |
Five-Star
***** Team: My Five-Star Team saw to it that no Inter-Service Transfer
was to be written in the stars for me in 1963. JFK’s stars were not so lucky for him that year. Almost four
months from the day I had read that SECRET
USCINC PREZ message, JFK tragically learned that his celestial destiny had not been given the positive star
crossed stick and rudder correction mine had.
By a fickle fatal fateful twist from my Aunties Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis, JFK ended up getting his very own Inter-Service Transfer. At November's end in 1963, President Kennedy was
given full military ceremonial honors as he was Transferred to Arlington,
Virginia and Interred into General Robert E. Lee's
front lawn in a G.I. sized casket with a religious Service rites
read over him. John Kennedy's final resting place was next to an eternal flame surrounded by a white picket fence to mark
the final boundaries of his Camelot.
36 years later this same star-crossed
negative stick and rudder, compounded by lack of aviator skills, was also to be visited upon the only male heir to Camelot, JFK’s only living son, John F. Kennedy, Jr. With Mother Jackie no longer around to constrain and protect Jon-Jon,
he took off VFR from Essex
Airport in New Jersey at 8:45 p.m., after sunset, and flew his Piper
32 Saratoga east into a dark hazy evening sky. A bit over an hour later, he flew straight into the water under full cruise
power with his new bride and sister-in-law aboard. The crash site was in Cape Cod’s ocean waters just off Philbin Beach on Martha’s Vineyard
southwest side.
JFK, the father, resides there
in GEN Robert E.
Lee’s front lawn, accompanied by Jacqueline
Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
and infant daughter and son. Jack waits there for me to join him instead of me waiting there for him to join me, as might have
been the case in the mid-1960s were it not for the positive celestial stick and rudder applied by my Five Star Team.
A U.S. Commander-in-Chief waits
silently for a rag hatted All American Bluejacket
Sailor-of-the-Line to finally answer his Presidential Camelot
Call-to-Muster for an involuntary
Inter-Service Transfer into
General Lee’s front lawn.
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