#2 He Almost Died Before Becoming President
While still living with his family in their Brooklyn Home, 2 year old Kennedy contracted scarlet fever. He received treatment and recovered for six weeks at a hospital in Boston, then spent yet another six weeks recuperating in a guesthouse in Poland Spring, Maine.
Following his graduation from Harvard University in 1942, Kennedy joined the Navy and was assigned to the South Pacific division to lead the PT-109, an 80-foot patrol boat.
He and his team were sent to monitor a channel in recently-conquered American land in August 1943 after the Japanese attacked their base. Their ship was idle, and radar was not used. They didn’t know they were on a Japanese destroyer’s path until it was too late. The survivors spent a few days on an island, and luckily, they were eventually rescued.
In 1954, roughly two years after Kennedy was chosen to serve in the Senate, physicians advised him to have back surgery to connect his spinal disks with a steel plate. Unfortunately, he experienced a severe urinary tract infection following the surgery and went into a coma. Nobody expected him to live, but surprisingly he actually did.
However, his recovery was long and difficult. After exiting the hospital, Kennedy rested at his parent’s house for the following five months.
9 Responses
Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy were great also. Melania , absolutely not.
He was a good leader in tough times.
However he also was a man of low moral character like his father and brother Ted .
Luckily for the family his brothers Joseph and Robert were men of faithfulness and integrity, but like so many times we overlook the truly good and idolize the undeserving. My view is not from history, but from living through those tough years.
I don’t believe the city was Brooklyn but Brookline (A part of Boston locale) in MA..I think the information needs to be checked out..
On the late evening of Thursday November 21st 1963, The President & Mrs Kennedy arrived at their hotel in Fort Worth TX A crowd had gathered in front of the hotel in anticipation of getting a chance to see the President or shake his hand. As was JFK’s custom, instead of the secret service escorting him directly into the hotel, President Kennedy did not disappoint the crowd that gathered that night in front of his hotel, he went directly to the crowd and started shaking hands, which made it difficult for the secret service to guard him, especially at night, when it would not be as easy to spot someone with a gun in the crowd, as it would in the daytime. The next morning as Air Force One was making the short less than 1/2 hour flight to Dallas, JFK remarked ironically “Last night would have been a hell of a time to assassinate the President” (Source “JFK The Final Hours”)
Just because you lived through “those times” does not give you any insight into the private lives of Joseph Kennedy Jr & RFK. First of all, we all know the eldest Kennedy son was blown up in his plane during a failed bombing mission in WWII in the early ‘40’s That is how people today know of him through the history books. However that does not mean that he had higher morales than his father, JFK or Teddy. How could you possibly know what Kennedy Jr. did in his private life with women in the 1930’s ? Secondly, RFK is remembered as a family man because he had nine children with Ethel. But that does not necessarily mean he had higher morales than JFK Other than his big family, how would you know what RFK was doing in his private life? Have you ever seen the photo of JFK & RFK at a cocktail party, huddling with Marilyn Monroe? There are some substantiated rumors that Marilyn Monroe also seduced RFK, but nobody actually has photos of that, so it is left to speculation. Thirdly, JFK was on many medications, one of them was a stimulant that helped him get through his unrelenting days of pressure, as President of the United States, this was confirmed by Kennedy’s doctor, who always traveled with the President and administered the medication that JFK required. A stimulant like speed or meth, can easily increase the sexual appetite in men, which is a medical fact, which would make sense why Kennedy would have some affairs, especially when beautiful women like Marilyn Monroe, were in awe of him, so for you to classify JFK & and his younger brother Teddy (despite Chappaquiddick) and even his father, who made a fortune in the stock market. (Financial power and affairs with beautiful women go hand in glove.) with lower morale character than Joseph Kennedy Jr & RFK ,is strictly your opinion, because in reality, you don’t know. JFK once said “We all breathe the same air, and we are mortal” Just as human nature has always been some what devious until the day a man dies.
My thoughts exactly. Another thing I’d like to know is how everyone who has an opinion “knows” Harry & Meghan are liars?
All of the sons of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and a daughter that he ordered to have a lobotomy, met tragic ends. However all of us living today are on death row, and the circumstances which cause our death whether it is unexpected and tragic like the Kennedy’s, or dying peacefully in one’s sleep, is really insignificant. Far more important is that death brings us to judgment before our Maker and how we are going to spend eternity, based on God’s judgment of our deeds, while we lived on this earth, far out weigh the circumstances of our death, So don’t delay, get straight with our Maker. One lesson we should have learned, is tomorrow is not promised to occupy life.
“Profile of Courage”?
So much as been written and said. His dad was rich and powerful, so the expectation of greatness had to be an incredible cross to bear. Regardless of the politics I beleive he did avert a nuclear war and he should be remembered accordingly.