ing loss, but in the moment, trying to hit targets that were miles away felt like a game. However, no amount of training could have prepared my grandfather for the events that ensued in that Fort Leonard Wood auditorium. For a brief instant, the burden of a nation would collide with my grandfather’s small-town existence. The microphone screeched with a brief, metallic buzz as the murmurs died out around the room. Terry blinked the clouds out of his eyes and stiffened his back, his feet now glued to the floor in attention. “What could this all be about?” Terry thought as his eyes scrolled over the people on stage. The skin on his forehead crinkled, however, when he realized who those people were. Every officer stationed at Fort Leonard Wood was standing on stage, arms pencil-straight at their sides and faces strained towards the man behind the podium. Even more surprising to Terry was the rank of the man who was about to speak: the commander of the entire base. Usually a man with an intense gaze, the commander’s eyes remained pointed in the direction of some empty chair at the back of the room. His head was smeared with sweat that glimmered from the stage lighting, and a crooked frown was plastered to his face. His lips shivered as he began to speak. “Gentlemen, I have an urgent message. The president has been shot…” The normally quiet assembly collectively gasped. Terry stared straight ahead as his mouth dropped open. He could not comprehend the scale of what had just happened, nor could he instantly realize its implications. Stunned, he sat and listened. No, rather, he heard. Listening would have caused a tear in his brain. Terry sat and heard as the commander spoke to that empty seat. Nothing made sense. The world might as well have been dunked underwater and yanked back up, barely alive. When the words “lockdown” and “war” vi-
brated from the speakers into Terry’s consciousness, it was like being crushed under the weight of the howitzer. Dread ran through his muscles until he was unable to move. The burden of a nation seemed to have been placed upon them. One passing moment may have stretched into a suspenseful eternity for the men in that Fort Leonard Wood auditorium, but the tension dissolved soon after. The Russians hadn’t killed Kennedy, and the Cold War didn’t turn hot. These important conclusions, however, proved to be but small details in the story of my grandpa’s life. He would have gone to war if called upon; he was not afraid of that. It was something else that illuminated the magnitude of the situation for my grandpa. The assassination of John F. Kennedy triggered the seismic shift that completely ripped him from his small town existence and threw him into a wider world that he couldn’t control. Russia was a long way from Washington, Missouri. Although jarring and cathartic, my grandpa’s experience on that day in the reserves was crucial in coaxing him to take risks later in his life, like moving to St. Louis in search of employment or starting his own business. He was vaulted out of the routine of small-town life and given a glimpse of his small corner in a complex, changing world. As I continue to age, I, too, will gain a fuller sense of reality. Going to college and starting a life in the real world may not be as profound as the assassination of a president, but they offer a similar perspective beyond my current life. St. Louis University High School, though bustling with nearly a thousand students, is a place of routine for me. For these four years, I know no other way. Like my grandpa, I will have to navigate new visions of the world as I move beyond this existence. And if that vision takes me by surprise, I hope to embrace the uncertainty, following my grandpa’s example.
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