Bay Of Pigs: I was just a six year old kid and really didn’t know what was going on until much later.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Grade school. Kept wondering why Mom and Dad had the TV on all the tmes and the news was always on.

JFK Assassination: Again in grade school. Nuns brought a TV in and we were let out of school early. Very depressing weekend. Never changed my mind that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter.

Jack.

I was in the 6th grade when President Kennedy was killed. Remember thinking “this can’t happen”.

Now Jimmy Carter, I remember. I was working a bank at the time. I remember the Prime rate hit 21%, inflation was in double digits, I think as high as 12% and unemployment was about 10%. I also remember a joke that was going around. “The Emperor Caliglia made his horse a Roman Senator, Jimmy Carter made half a horse a UN Ambassador.”

I just got promoted at the bank to my dream job, internal auditor, when he gave the malaise speech. The economy which was in recession took a nose dive and I lost my job in April of 1980. I took great pleasure in helping him loose his job in November.

JFK hit – 3rd grade. I remember there were three tv stations in those days. Every one of them played nothing but endless loops of JFK for DAYS. Drove me nuts. There was literally nothing on the tube but that. The worst was Jon-Jon saluting the casket. Then later when Ruby whacked Oswald it seemed to start all over again.

The Jimmy Carter era is much more vivid. I had been released from active duty near the end of 1974. By spring of ’75 we were all being treated on tv to the evacuation of Saigon. There was the payoff in living color for all the dirty, dangerous jobs my shipmates and I (and countless others in uniform) had been tasked with over the years. How many of you remember the Mayaguez Incident? That whole spring was like one bad dream.

In November ’76 our war weary nation opted for Jimmy C instead of Gerry Ford. Payback for Watergate? Or retaliation for the Nixon pardon? Who knows. It soon became clear that the man from Plains, GA had great deficiencies when it came to domestic economics and foreign policy. Prices for almost everything soared to record levels, along with unemployment. Jimmy’s answers? A national 55mph speed limit. Put on another sweater in lieu of being able to afford heat for your home. Punitive taxes (windfall profits tax) on domestic energy producers.

The Kremlin absolutely LOVED ole Jimmy. He cut a series of deals with them they had NO intention of honoring, and didn’t. All while Carter (with a cooperative Dem congress) effectively gutted our military (particularly our Navy).

Carter’s greatest political failure (in my view) was his full court press to get rid of the Shah of Iran. The Shah had been a trusted ally of the US for many years and was a stabilizing force in the region. Carter instead enabled the installation of the Khomeini regime, whose atrocities made the Shah look like a Boy Scout. And so began the Age of the Terrorist….

Ironically, it would be the Khomeini zealots that would (effectively) cost Carter re-election in 1980.

By then, the misery index had achieved record levels. Americans, weary of their impotent president, turned the reins over to a new leader, RONALDUS MAXIMUS.

Cuban Missile crisis, I was in high school and keeping track of things We had missile silos around our small town and two SAC bases not too far away so we knew military was on a high alert. Later I found out that JFK and Khrushchev had pulled a lot of self serving high drama out of the situation.

JFK Assassination, like Sara above I was a freshman in college in Missouri. We had ROTC every Friday afternoon and we were all in uniform in the ROTC building when an officer came in and told us that our Commander-in-Chief had been shot and killed. We did not know who that was until it was explained that he was the President of the USA. We got out early an went bowling and drank beer.

I watched Jimmy ‘Peanut Man’ Carter tear apart our National Intelligence ability and through people under the bus all around the world. I was MI for four years in the Army and had some idea about how bad our US capabilities were being compromised. Jimmy Peanut cut the legs out from under the energy industry with him ‘windfall profits tax’. And of course he bought in totally to the concept that the Shah of Iran was the worst evil in the world and he enabled the Khomeini to take of Iran and I did not see how that was really any improvement. What a knob Carter was. But that is just my opinion.

Both JFK & Carter should be toss ups for that worst presidents of the 20th Century. I was so sorry that JFK was killed and then martyred. I wonder how the 60′s would have turned out if he had just faded out of sight?

Bay of Pigs: I was attending electronics school at Ft. Monmouth, N.J. Not much excitement amongst the Army peeps.

Missile Crisis: I was in Peshawar, Pakistan. It’s been in the news of late. There are things that happened that are still highly classified. The thermite grenades were unpacked and set on top of the classified machinery. The situation was far more dangerous than most realize.

Assassination: Incirlik AFB, Adana, Turkey. Our unit had to dig out our Class-A’s, packed away for a couple of years, for a brief memorial formation. We watched a convoy of four nuclear device transporters heading for the hot pad.

A note on Carter: In 1976 Carter appeared on the very popular show “I’ve Got a Secret”. He stumped the panel then revealed his secret: “My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for President of the United States”. My wife and I chuckled. I still remember it very clearly.

I grew up in suburban Detroit and didn’t grace the world until just after JFK’s assassination. But that also means I was well aware for Carter’s term. Then as now, he hadn’t met a dictator he didn’t like. And I remember all too well the effects price controls — many of which had been started towards the end of Nixon’s administration but yet continued and in many cases enhanced during Carter’s term. From an old poot to the younger crowd, don’t fall for it, it never works.

I remember Carter, that was the first election I voted in. He came to the university I was attending, when campaigning, and spoke and took questions. I asked him one about the upcoming B1 bomber program, at that time the B52 were older than I was, and I felt we needed force modernization in the midst of the Cold War. He weasel worded an answer but basically said he’d cut it for social programs, which he did. Didn’t vote for him, he acted like a feeble minded fool even back then.

Buchanan’s obviously the worst president we’ve ever had, and Harding comes next. Then, say the historians, comes Grant. But I’d put Carter in ahead of ole Ulysses, I really would.

I have a friend who whole heartily agrees with you about Carter 3rd from the last.

I was only 6 months old when Kennedy was shot so I am completely clueless as to what was going on. Nowadays, I am convinced that LBJ had a hand in his death, along with the joint chiefs and the Mob, but that is a time for another discussion.

Ahhhh the Carter years. Just a young pup in Jr. High or High School. I remember the stupidity of Carter doing nothing to help the Shah. I remember the foolishness of Carter doing nothing to retrieve our hostages. The craziness of Carter not helping people with gas prices. (seems the more things change, the more they stay the same) I remember the shocked disbelief as my UAW Father told me he was going to vote for Reagan. He was right of course, and I am glad he did. The funniest thing I remember was a SLN skit where Jimmy and Rosalyn were giving a televised “fireside” chat speech, using a stationary bike to power the camera. – Lorica

Cuban Missile Crisis: Never panicked. I figured they’d work things out. I didn’t think the USSR had any desire to blow up the world, and I was sure JFK didn’t want to do so either.

Assassination: Had started my first job a few months before. Worked in a retail book store. One of my days off was Friday. Was still living with my mom and dad, of course. I was washing up in the bathroom. My mom’s domestic helper, Jean, who came, two days a week (one day was Friday), was listening to the radio. Suddenly she called out. “Come down here quick. They shot the president!” I’m like, “what, who? The Communists?”

“Must be them!” she called out. Then she got on the phone to call my mom at work. I had came downstairs by then, and Jean said, “your mama wants to talk to you.” So I got on the phone, and she said to stay calm. She said, “I don’t think it’s the Communists. It’s probably some nut.”

Sunday: We are in front of the TV. Reporter is saying, “they’re moving Lee Harvey Oswald now.” My mom (who saw through everything–even figured out those 1950s quiz shows were rigged) goes, “this is stupid why are they . . . ” BLAM “What happened?”

“Umm, I think somebody just shot Oswald.” So it was.

Carter: It is the late 1970s, New York is falling apart. There are lines to fill up for gas that extend down West End Avenue from 110th St. to 96th Street, where there are two gas stations. That’s 1.5 miles. Happily carless, I am walking to work past vendors who are selling coffee, etc. to the stuck motorists. Some guy is selling used paperbacks.

Buchanan’s obviously the worst president we’ve ever had, and Harding comes next. Then, say the historians, comes Grant. But I’d put Carter in ahead of ole Ulysses, I really would.

Jim’s dad was the county prosecutor so we both wore his buttons along with JFK’s. I got involved with politics and politicians back in ’62 but we cared about the Beatles more than anything.

JFK assassination (1963) – This one is more vivid. The school day was interrupted by a PA announcement, and we sat for about two hours while the radio feed of the events was broadcast into every classroom. The most obvious difference from the usual was that aside from a few girls sobbing, there was absolutely none of the usual background chatter or clowning around. Everyone else was somber and silent. After two hours or so, school was dismissed. Spent the rest of that long weekend watching Oswald’s murder and the funeral. It took quite a while before the shock wore off.

Now, as for the Carter administration…where to begin. My thoughts were about what you’d expect, considering that in 1976 I was one of a band of young revolutionaries working against the state GOP establishment to get Ronald Reagan the presidential nomination (and let the record show that the NJ delegation to the convention that year split 50-50 between Reagan and Ford). So I spent the Carter years wondering exactly what he would screw up next, and I was seldom disappointed. The pardon for all the Vietnam draft dodgers as his first act in office. Ignoring national security issues while he worked on the schedule of who would be allowed to use the White House tennis courts. Helping the Ayatollahs take over Iran (which before Carter was a steadfast US ally). The field day comics had when he was attacked by a killer rabbit. Putting on a sweater, telling us to turn down our thermostats, and planning a federal program to barge into homes to make sure we weren’t wasting energy. Going on TV and admonishing us to get over our “inordinate fear of communism” and accept it. Watching the “misery index” go through the roof. And of course flailing around ineptly as the Iranian hostage crisis made him and the US a laughingstock.

If I’ve missed anything, feel free to add to the list.

And I’d expect roughly the same stellar track record from an Obama administration.