Sunday Rerun: Thank God he didn't have bone spurs

(Note: this is a Sunday rerun, and today just happens to be the 105th birthday of the man we're writing about!)

 Maybe I should have been a history teacher! I keep finding stories that I feel like sharing.

We talked about Richard Nixon the other day, a US Navy lawyer during World War II. He served as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, the man who led the D-Day invasion that turned the tide of the war. After serving as president of Columbia University, "Ike" became the president of the US. Little is known of Nixon following his two terms as vice president. Rumor has it that he served a term and a half as president, but it's hard to find verification on that.

Lt. John F. Kennedy

Eisenhower was a true war hero, and I'm sure Nixon's service as a lawyer was appreciated. Fifteen years after the war ended, Nixon ran for president (for the first time) against John F. Kennedy, a war hero on a much smaller scale, but a hero nonetheless, so much so that he was elected president and was the subject of a hit record by sausage king Jimmy Dean.

The record, "P.T. 109" documented Kennedy's valiant service about a patrol torpedo boat in the South Pacific war. The "109" was rammed and split in half by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands in August 1943. Kennedy, the skipper of the boat, was 25 years of age, and went to heroic measures to save his crew. There was a sailor who was badly injured, and Kennedy had him hold onto a rope, then towed the man three-and-a-half miles through dark ocean waters, to the safety of an island while holding his end of the rope IN HIS TEETH! Kennedy was injured in that battle, and for the rest of his life dealt with back problems. He became famous for using a rocking chair at his desk in the White House to ease the strain.

The "109" is lost forever, but remains of the vessel Kennedy commanded next have recently been found! JFK next served aboard the "PT 59," and in that capacity, torpedoed Japanese barges and rescued ten stranded Marines.

PT-59 during World War II

After the war, the Navy sold the "59." It was used as a fishing vessel/charter boat, eventually falling into the hands of Redmond Burke, who bought it for $1,000 and used it as a houseboat. Realizing the significance of the boat, he attempted to sell it to Kennedy memorializers, but, finding no takers, he let it sink to the bottom of the Harlem River in the 1970s.
Now, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)  of New York is trying to prevent a recurrence of the flooding they experienced from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, so they are building a seawall along the riverfront near the 207th Street train yard. They have recovered a hatch door frame, a rudder and a  generator from the "59," and the MTA is working with museums, such as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, and the Battleship Cove maritime museum in Fall River, Massachusetts, to see about displaying the relics.

It's wonderful when history comes back to us. Mr Kennedy, rest in peace, sir.