In 1992, I learned a lot more about my family and the John F. Kennedy assassination, mostly because of the Oliver Stone film, JFK, that implied Kennedy had been killed by hihg ranking people within the FBI and CIA.

A consequence of the film JFK was a resurgence in public interest, and the public demanded to know more and newly elected President Clinton authorized releasing part of the JFK Assassination Report that had been begun in 1976, soon after Hoffa disappeared. The congressional committee consisted of bipartisan elected officials, and, interestingly, the editor of Time magazine who had worked with Bobby Kennedy and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to plaster Big Daddy across media after Kennedy’s death. They reopened all files and brought in both FBI and civilian experts in ballistics, forensics, photography forging, espionage, and almost every other aspect that would be involved in the crime of the century. By 1979, the 12 volume congressional JFK Assassination Report reversed the Warren Commissions findings and determined that President Kennedy had probably been killed as part of a larger conspiracy, and that the three main suspects with the motivation and means to orchestrate such a plot were Jimmy Hoffa, Joseph Carlos Marcello, and Sancto Trafficante.

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On the morning of January 16th, 1991, almost exactly 18 years after I was conceived, Sergeant Shaq woke us with my beeping watch in his hand and we got into the Humvee and turned the glow plugs and ignited the engine and looked up and saw dozens of bombers and attack aircraft flying overhead, and we followed them over our heads and across the border to Iraq in front of us, and the war began.

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I arrived at Fort Bragg on a C-5 Galaxy from Fort Benning, and within two days I had been given every vaccination and preventive medication known to the army in an endless series of shots and pills, and they gave us an experimental pill to prevent certain death from nerve agent and reduce it to a something that would be horrible but we’d probably survive long enough to feel more of the pain and misery before being less likely to die; it was pyridostigmine bromide, though I couldn’t pronounce it then and couldn’t recall the name and would have to look it up when writing this, unlike the other injections that I’d get every six months, like the thick and viscous gammu globulin injected into our butt cheeks that took a half hour to dissipate, and the barrage of tetnis, yellow fever, malaria, and other international diseases that America’s Quick Reaction Force regularly received, just in case. The gammu globulin was an immune booster given every six months and was a thick, viscous gel kept refrigerated until injected into our buttocks and made us sit angled for the half hour it took to disolve, so I knew it well. Butt, pun intended, we were never given pyridostigmine bromide again.

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I entered the 1990 Baton Rouge City Wrestling Tournament with a record of 54:13, including 34 pins. I had been pinned six times: four times by Hillary, twice by the Jesuit 145 pounder, and twice and random matches in the fall of 1989. The coaches convened, and I was seeded third. Frank Jackson was seeded second. We had wrestled six times and were 3:3, and every time, each of us won by only one point. Because of the bracketing and in order to minimize surprise upsets of the first seed, Hillary Clinton, neither of us were in Hillary’s bracket. He was sure to defeat the fourth seed, and, assuming we both defeated our first two opponents, the winner between Frank and me would wrestle Hillary Clinton in the finals.

Neither of us were sure that was a good thing.

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“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

― Ronald Reagan

She held the pistol in her tiny hands carefully, her slightly oversized bright red ear muffs looking ridiculously cute against her blonde hair. Behind her safety glasses, she squinted her left eye squinted and with through her left eye; lazy eyes and front sight focus would come later. She knew we were safe, and that this was practice, and the she couldn’t fail or hurt anyone, and that I had her back.

I stood behind her, smiling, relaxed but more alert than most people are all day, and I felt wonderful.

We were in a safety range, and this would be the first time she wold squeeze the trigger. I won’t bore you with the details, but she had been trained by some of the most respected and remarkable experts in the industry.

She did her best, and I love her.

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