Where Were You When... ? Chapter 2

Some events seem to stop time. They become embedded in the ink of recorded history. They transcend time through the lives they touch directly, and through the lives of those who later hear the stories from loved ones. The comic and heart warming are obviously the most enjoyable in recollection; but the tragic are sometimes most easily recalled, and sometimes held as the most precious. Those can become a part of who we are, inseparable from our hearts and memories; and always affecting our future...

" I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth ."

Those were the words of President John F. Kennedy that launched the United States into the "Space Race" and eventually, on July, 16, 1969, launched three American astronauts into space to achieve that seemingly "astronomical" goal. World-wide television coverage documented the trip, the landing, the moon walk and the return to earth. The world changed for ever. The President of the United States said of the event: "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since creation."

America is a far different country than it was in the 1960s. The world is a far different place. Between 1957 and 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote five books. He spoke thousands of times and traveled millions of miles. In the hot summer of 1963, King spoke on Washington D.C.'s Capitol mall before 250,000 civil rights demonstrators. He spoke before a finite group, but was heard by the nation. The movement that had been built upon his philosophy of peaceful and non-violent resistance was given wings by his dream.

He was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year"; was arrested 20 or more times; and he led a movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Ultimately in April of 1968, at the age of 39, his work of equality and freedom for all people was brought to an ugly violent end, but his dream is becoming reality.

In October 1962, the president was shown U-2 spy plane photographs of Soviet nuclear missile launching sites on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States. Cuba had recently formed alliances with the USSR, and the U.S. had monitored an apparent military build-up throughout the summer of '62. The missile launching sites confirmed a clear threat to U.S. cities, and a tense stand-off had begun and would last for 13 days.

Since the earliest years of the Cold War born in the wake of World War II, Americans were convinced of the inevitability of nuclear holocaust. Backyard bomb shelters sold well, and international spy stories captivated the imagination. Espionage, military deployment, conflicts and wars were driven by the tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

By parking missiles in Cuba, the Soviets would have brought the possibility of destruction directly to American soil. In what was considered to be the Soviet response to American missile deployment in Turkey, the two countries presented the possibility of nuclear war to the world. President John F. Kennedy considered blockades and air-strike options. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev carried the weaponization plan as far as he dared; and from his bomb shelter Cuban Premier Fidel Castro mobilized his army in preparation for invasion from the U.S. Before the stand-off ended in the removal of the missiles, the cold war had come as close to nuclear as it may have ever been. Again-- 90 miles from the U.S. shore.

In 1950 Norma Jeane Baker had transformed herself into movie star Marilyn Monroe. For films she developed a "dumb blond" persona that led to her struggle with typecasting. In a short career she became an icon, and arguably one of the most famous women in American history. In 1954 Marilyn married baseball great Joe DiMaggio. With hero and "regular guy" DiMaggio, she showed America that women prefer a "regular Joe".

But the marriage couldn't last. Marilyn's fame, and the demands of her career brought it to an end nine months later. Joe wanted a wife at home, and she couldn't have provided that. The public was devastated. But Marilyn's life took many more turns before it finished in disarray, confusion mystery and suspicion.

On August 4, 1962, having provided a relatively short chapter in history, Marilyn's story ended with a shocking and contradictory finality that will always continue to draw readers. This "candle in the wind" had burned out too soon, but will never lose its place in motion pictures and in the hearts of those who love them.

In an incredibly heartless act of calculated inhuman behavior, a band of murderers conspired to take the lives of 2,751 people on September 11, 2011. Life in America changed in an instant. New York's vertical reach was viciously adjusted in a way that left families and compassionate rescuers searching through rubble and debris for the precious souls who hours earlier had worked and lived without thought of suffering or eternity. Oh what man can do to his fellow man!

As in a book with many pages missing, life stories changed on 9/11. From one remaining page to the next, every life had been brutally adjusted. Acceptance and recovery come at different paces, and on different levels for all; but for those born since the event... they'll live in a post-9/11 world created anew at "ground zero".