JFK's last public words.
The last formal public speech of a man or woman can often and unexpectedly provide the most telling comments, even if only by a small story.
His desk at the White House empty, his travels to Texas, confirmed - on November 22nd, 1963 President John F. Kennedy offered these comments within his speech. Though focused on the "Aerospace Medical Center" in San Antonio, Mr. Kennedy's point is applicable to all of us.... on this side of the curtain of life - a curtain from which he would exit within a day's time. Here's a segment:
"Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them.
This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side."
President John F. Kennedy spoke in my "hometown" at the time: San Antonio, TX and gave his last speech. It was about the future...a future that would vanish for him within 24 hours.
My dad, CMSGT Bill Mansfield, an NCO in the US Air Force, tells me that he took us to go see JFK. I have no clear memory of seeing him, though it was our AFB at which LBJ and so many leaders of the Kennedy Administration regularly landed, which I clearly DO remember.
I also DO remember deeply crying the day after the sppech at 1 pm when the Principal of Randolph AFB Elementary School, which I attended, announced his death.
A year ago, I wrote something about this subject. Within that year my own 27 year old son died. Like JFK's death at 47, youth should not die. Parents should not bury their children, whether a President or a searching young soul.
And interestingly enough, Nate had his own set of last words.
His fiancée told me that one of the last things he said to her, when they had dinner the night before he passed away, was "Food tastes better when you share it." And with that he gave her half of whatever it was they were enjoying for dinner. A small act, but a kind act. Kind words in private can be ever so great as great speeches given in public. This I have come to understand.
If you were to vanish into history tomorrow, what would your last public words (or private - for that matter) be? Would people think about them years later?
Mine? I would hope that what I've said so often these last three decades of my half century plus of living would be on my lips at life's end:
"Thank you Lord, for my salvation due to what Jesus did for me on the cross. Here I am Father."
Or maybe, like Mother Teresa, it would be even simpler.
Den
PS: Here's the full speech given November 21, 1963.
(If you'd like to listen to it visit this and download it.)
Mr. Secretary, Governor, Mr. Vice President, Senator, Members of the Congress, members Of the military, ladies and gentlemen:
For more than 3 years I have spoken about the New Frontier. This is not a partisan term, and it is not the exclusive property of Republicans or Democrats. It refers, instead, to this Nation's place in history, to the fact that we do stand on the edge of a great new era, filled with both crisis and opportunity, an era to be characterized by achievement and by challenge. It is an era which calls for action and for the best efforts of all those who would test the unknown and the uncertain in every phase of human endeavor. It is a time for pathfinders and pioneers.
I have come to Texas today to salute an outstanding group of pioneers, the men who man the Brooks Air Force Base School of Aerospace Medicine and the Aerospace Medical Center. It is fitting that San Antonio should be the site of this center and this school as we gather to dedicate this complex of buildings. For this city has long been the home of the pioneers in the air. It was here that Sidney Brooks, whose memory we honor today, was born and raised. It was here that Charles Lindbergh and Claire Chennault, and a host of others, who, in World War I and World War II and Korea, and even today have helped demonstrate American mastery of the skies, trained at Kelly Field and Randolph Field, which form a major part of aviation history. And in the new frontier of outer space, while headlines may be made by others in other places, history is being made every day by the men and women of the Aerospace Medical Center, without whom there could be no history.
Many Americans make the mistake of assuming that space research has no values here on earth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just as the wartime development of radar gave us the transistor, and all that it made possible, so research in space medicine holds the promise of substantial benefit for those of us who are earthbound. For our effort in space is not as some have suggested, a competitor for the natural resources that we need to develop the earth. It is a working partner and a coproducer of these resources. And nothing makes this clearer than the fact that medicine in space is going to make our lives healthier and happier here on earth.
I give you three examples: first, medical space research may open up new understanding of man's relation to his environment. Examinations of the astronaut's physical, and mental, and emotional reactions can teach us more about the differences between normal and abnormal, about the causes and effects of disorientation, about changes in metabolism which could result in extending the life span. When you study the effects on our astronauts of exhaust gases which can contaminate their environment, and you seek ways to alter these gases so as to reduce their toxicity, you are working on problems similar to those in our great urban centers which themselves are being corrupted by gases and which must be clear.
And second, medical space research may revolutionize the technology and the techniques of modern medicine. Whatever new devices are created, for example, to monitor our astronauts, to measure their heart activity, their breathing, their brain waves, their eye motion, at great distances and under difficult conditions, will also represent a major advance in general medical instrumentation. Heart patients may even be able to wear a light monitor which will sound a warning if their activity exceeds certain limits. An instrument recently developed to record automatically the impact of acceleration upon an astronaut's eyes will also be of help to small children who are suffering miserably from eye defects, but are unable to describe their impairment. And also by the use of instruments similar to those used in Project Mercury, this Nation's private as well as public nursing services are being improved, enabling one nurse now to give more critically ill patients greater attention than they ever could in the past.
And third, medical space research may lead to new safeguards against hazards common to many environments. Specifically, our astronauts will need fundamentally new devices to protect them from the ill effects of radiation which can have a profound influence upon medicine and man's relations to our present environment.
Here at this center we have the laboratories, the talent, the resources to give new impetus to vital research in the life centers. I am not suggesting that the entire space program is justified alone by what is done in medicine. The space program stands on its own as a contribution to national strength. And last Saturday at Cape Canaveral I saw our new Saturn C-1 rocket booster, which, with its payload, when it rises in December of this year, will be, for the first time, the largest booster in the world, carrying into space the largest payload that any country in the world has ever sent into space.
I think the United States should be a leader. A country as rich and powerful as this which bears so many burdens and responsibilities, which has so many opportunities, should be second to none. And in December, while I do not regard our mastery of space as anywhere near complete, while I recognize that there are still areas where we are behind--at least in one area, the size of the booster--this year I hope the United States will be ahead. And I am for it. We have a long way to go. Many weeks and months and years of long, tedious work lie ahead. There will be setbacks and frustrations and disappointments. There will be, as there always are, pressures in this country to do less in this area as in so many others, and temptations to do something else that is perhaps easier. But this research here must go on. This space effort must go on. The conquest of space must and will go ahead. That much we know. That much we can say with confidence and conviction.
Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them.
This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side.
Thank you.
Great political trivia question. The JFK Library index only lists the President's comments at the FW Chamber as informal "off the cuff" comments and not a formal speech with notes and text.
Hence the distinction.
Den
Posted by: Dennis Mansfield | November 19, 2009 at 02:43 PM
Why are you discounting his last given speech--at the Forth Worth Chamber of Commerce?
Posted by: thepoliticalgame | November 19, 2009 at 11:55 AM