Hill still feels pain of JFK’s death [but that doesn't stop him from feeling no pain at the cash register: ANOTHER book is due out from him May 2012]

Hill still feels pain of JFK’s death
Published 11:34am Monday, November 28, 2011
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North Dakota native and Concordia College, Moorhead, graduate Clint Hill, now 79, has lived with the pain of John F. Kennedy’s death more than anyone, aside from members of JFK’s family.

Hill worked as a Secret Service agent that fateful day in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, when an assassin took President Kennedy’s life.

After 48 years, Hill and other Secret Service agents are telling their story in a book, “The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence.”

I finished reading the book Nov. 16, just six days prior to the anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

And while reliving the assassination is never pleasant, there are uplifting sections of the book. Agents recall the months when President Kennedy was alive, and when he held the nation’s highest office. Those great days called Camelot went from January 1961 to November 1963.

Hill was riding in the car that was immediately behind the presidential limousine in Dallas. As soon as the shooting began, he jumped out and began running to overtake the moving car in front of him.

As Hill made his way atop the rear of the presidential vehicle, Mrs. Kennedy, in shock, was crawling onto the flat rear trunk of the moving limousine. Hill guided the First Lady back into her seat. He placed his body above the President and Mrs. Kennedy.

After their arrival at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, both Hill and Mrs. Kennedy knew that JFK, who was only 46, would not survive.

“When the president of the United States is assassinated, it splits the nation in grief and pain and leaves the group of men assigned to protect him to live with the guilt of personal failure,” said Muriel Dobbin.

She is a former White House and national political reporter for the Baltimore Sun who gave the book, “The Kennedy Detail,” a positive review.

This book would not be a reality had it not been for the hard work and dedication of former Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine.

Blaine, Hill and other Secret Service agents drew upon notes, locked away in attics, and from recollections of the events in Dallas in 1963.

JFK treated Secret Service agents with respect. The president was known to distribute a pile of his own short-sleeved shirts to agents sweltering in the summer sun at Hyannis Port, Mass., and to bring a scarf and gloves for an agent shivering in the winter cold of New York.

After all these years, Hill and other Secret Service agents have come to realize there was nothing they could have done differently to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy [bullshit- how about hit the gas and cover the man???}.

Nonetheless, the pain for each of them is deeper than for average Americans who remember that fateful day in Dallas 48 years ago.