Great Warbird Line from the movie

[Bill Greenwood]

I am watching 'THIRTEEN DAYS" about the Cuban missile crisis. Everyone should see this, and again if you saw it years ago, and especially if you are young and didn't live through it.

In one part , we sent low level photo recon planes over Cuba to update on the missile sites. JFK ordered the pilots " not to get shot at and not to get shot down". The point was that he didn't want to be forced to retaliate too soon or too much.
The pilot, Cmd, Ecker takes some hits, but makes it back to Florida safely, The guys on the ground are looking at the holes in his wing, and Ecker says he must have hit a whole flock of sparrows. One of the guys looks at the holes and asks, "Were those 20mm or 30 mm sparrows?

I was just at the asassination site in Dallas and said how good a president I though Kennedy was. He had to face one huge question and crisis, about as big as any pres ever, and his cool patience and judgement, in the face of a lot of hot heads like Gen. LeMay, kept us out of a nuclear war.

Some people feel JFK should have done a better job in the Bay of Pigs invasion. I frankly don't know much about that, but my inpression is that it was not primarily a Kennedy program. In any case, that was not nearly the worldwide war threat that this Oct crisis was.