DAY OF MUFFLED DRUMS

JFK+50:  Volume 6, No. 1777

JFK LAID TO REST 52 YEARS AGO

Arlington, Virginia (JFK+50) Fifty-two years ago today, Monday, November 25, 1963, the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was laid to rest at the National Cemetery here in Arlington.

The National Day of Mourning proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, began just after 10 a.m. when JFK's casket was removed from the Capitol Rotunda by a military honor guard and placed on a horse drawn caisson.

The caisson was followed by a sailor bearing the Flag of the President of the United States and by a riderless horse with boots turned backward in the stirrups.  The military procession marched slowly to the beat of muffled drums.

From the White House, the procession made its way to nearby Saint Matthew's Cathedral on Rhode Island Avenue where a Low Mass was conducted by the Archbishop of Boston and Kennedy family friend, Richard Cardinal Cushing.

As the President's flag-draped casket was moved out of the cathedral and placed back on the caisson, John F. Kennedy, Jr., dressed in blue, raised his right hand in a soldier's salute in honor of his dad.

The procession continued past the Lincoln Memorial and across the bridge to Arlington National Cemetery.  There, on the hill just below the Custis-Lee Mansion, the body of the 35th President of the United States reached it's final resting place.

Mrs. Kennedy, Robert and Ted Kennedy together lit the Eternal Flame on the grave.  Fifty-two year later its' light continues to remind us of our Nation's loss.

The Eternal Flame

 Arlington National Cemetery

 Photo by WKnight94