What we didn't know because we weren't told. The guy was a mess. The following are excerpts from this story. The gist of the headline is that his back brace made it impossible for him to move when first shot.

The opening paragraph is a gem. The Kennedy worship never ends:

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Every November, America remembers the end of Camelot: a shining time of promise led by John F. Kennedy, our nation's youngest president, brought to an abrupt and bloody end by Lee Harvey Oswald's second shot, a bullet to the brain.

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The Kennedy clan closely guarded the true extent of John Kennedy's medical problems well past his death.

Though details escaped over the years -- it's hard to hide news photos of him walking on crutches before and after one of his numerous back surgeries -- it wasn't until 2002, when historian Robert Dallek was allowed access to a collection of documents spanning 1955 and 1963, that specifics began to emerge.

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A sickly child -- Kennedy had scarlet fever at age 2 -- he spent his teenage years in and out of hospitals with abdominal and joint pain, flu-like symptoms and extreme weight loss. At the age of 15, Jack (his family nickname) weighed a mere 117 pounds, according to Dallek's research. By the next year, worried he might have leukemia, doctors began regularly checking his blood count. After a bout of tests at the Mayo Clinic, his physicians delivered a different diagnosis: peptic ulcer disease, or what we now call colitis.

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After college, it was that back pain, along with his extensive history of other medical problems, that kept Kennedy from his next dream: serving his country in World War II. First the Army and then the Navy turned him down.But Kennedy didn't give up, and with the help of his father's political contacts, he was accepted into the Navy in 1941.

"He made it through the Navy Officer Candidate School in 1941 and then failed his physical again," Pait said. "And then the PT, or Patrol Torpedo, boat experiment began. Again, determined to do more than sit at a desk, Jack pulled more strings. He got into the PT boat training program despite all of his medical problems and his back pain."

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Kennedy's next surgery, in October 1954, nearly killed him. After a metal plate was inserted in his lower back to fuse his spine, he developed a urinary tract infection. He got so sick, the family called a priest to administer last rites. This would be the second time; a priest had also been called in 1947 after Kennedy was diagnosed with Addison's disease, an adrenal gland disorder causing fatigue, muscle weakness, weight loss and abdominal pain, reminiscent of his childhood illnesses.

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But the grueling campaign leading up to his election as president in 1960 again took a toll on Kennedy, and he would find relief in the hands of Dr. Max Jacobson, who had the nicknames "Miracle Max" and "Dr. Feelgood" for injecting his patients with amphetamine-based concoctions.

"The secret formula was thought to have some methamphetamine in it," Pait said. "He injected Kennedy, and it made the president feel fantastic. He was high. And he was not in pain."

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"Later, his brother Bobby confronted Jack about the shots, and Jack said, 'I don't give a damn if it's horse piss, it makes me feel better.' People say that today with the opioid epidemic: 'I don't give a damn what you say, I need my medicine!' "

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And that is all the writer tells us about Kennedy's addiction to meth while he was President.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jfks-as...kt5R&ocid=ientp

I don't begrudge Kennedy's reliance on whatever made him feel better, and I am sorry he had to endure so much pain throughout his life. But I do take issue with the fact this was all hidden when he was POTUS and the press then, and even now, paint the guy as some sort of secular saint. The American people deserved to know about Kennedy's physical condition, and his reliance on methamphetamine in order to function. But even then the MSM was in the pocket of the Democrats and he got away with it.

Me, I remember how MoMo Giancana and LBJ fixed the election. I remember Kennedy's betrayal of the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, and how he and that sleazy little shit of his brother tried to lay THAT off on the military. I remember him pulling missiles out of turkey. I remember his mistress was Mo Mo's girl friend. I remember he was banging a Danish woman in WW II [when he was in ONI], who might have been a German spy. I remember he refused to be warned off.

I remember how unfit he was for PT boat command. I remember how "Profiles in Courage" was written by a committee of academics under Theodore Sorenson's oversight. But JFK took the Pulitzer anyway. I remember a Pre4sident who snuck off to see one his honeys in NYC without telling the aide with the football where he was, or where he was going. I remember a man who cheated almost daily on his wife, but pretended to be a family man.

The eternal zippo lighter at Arlington should be taken down, and replaced with a stone like his betters' graves are marked with. Kennedy was all form, and no substance. He was a slug.

Excellent, excellent commentary PzLdr, and not because it mirrors my own thinking; but because it tells the ugly truth about St John's life and behavior.

If I had to pick the most disreputable period in his life, it would be his betrayal of the Cuban patriots at the Bay of Pigs, and his subsequent ransoming for their release as he groveled before the Castro regime.

Two further points: my political awareness and activism began during the Kennedy years (as a Conservative), and I think Kennedy's one supposed great accomplishment, the Cuban Missile Crisis, was a farce.

Quote: PzLdr wrote in post #2

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Me, I remember how MoMo Giancana and LBJ fixed the election. I remember Kennedy's betrayal of the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, and how he and that sleazy little shit of his brother tried to lay THAT off on the military. I remember him pulling missiles out of turkey. I remember his mistress was Mo Mo's girl friend. I remember he was banging a Danish woman in WW II [when he was in ONI], who might have been a German spy. I remember he refused to be warned off.

I remember how unfit he was for PT boat command. I remember how "Profiles in Courage" was written by a committee of academics under Theodore Sorenson's oversight. But JFK took the Pulitzer anyway. I remember a Pre4sident who snuck off to see one his honeys in NYC without telling the aide with the football where he was, or where he was going. I remember a man who cheated almost daily on his wife, but pretended to be a family man.

The eternal zippo lighter at Arlington should be taken down, and replaced with a stone like his betters' graves are marked with. Kennedy was all form, and no substance. He was a slug.

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