REMEMBERING CHOATE ACADEMY GRADS HOWARD B COMEN, JOSEPH P KENNEDY, AND JOHN F KENNEDY

REMEMBERING CHOATE SCHOOL'S  HOWARD B COMEN, JOSEPH P KENNEDY, AND JOHN F KENNEDY WHO DIED IN SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY 

In the years 1933 and 1934  my Uncle Howard ( I'm named for him), John, and Joe Jr acted out the last vestiges of their childhoods on the campus of Choate Academy of Wallingford Connecticut. The three left boyhood fantasies, dreams, and aspirations there. The world that their fathers and mothers made safe for Democracy a decade earlier was turning bloody, evil, and Fascist.

Howard Comen was Jewish who graduated High School at 16 years old. My grandfather enrolled his eldest son at Choate for a year before he entered Yale. 16 was too young for college. Joseph P Kennedy Sr. was Ambassador to England His eldest son,  Joseph P Kennedy Jr. was destined for Harvard like his dad and, his dad hoped the Presidency of the United States. Ambassador Kennedy's middle son, the sickly John F Kennedy was put in Choate so the elder brother could keep an eye on him.

After Choate the three graduated their Ivy League Universities and began to make their marks on society. Howard as a representative of the Comen business interests, and John and Joe into the world of politics. Then Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo tried to conquer the world.

Howard, married with a young daughter Carol,  and the Kennedy Brothers entered the new war to make world safe for Democracy. 

Joseph P Kennedy Jr. was made ready for high political office by his Dad, Ambassador Kennedy. Then he entered the Navy. John F Kennedy became an author, reporting on the growing catastrophe in Europe. He entered the fray in the Navy, serving in the Navy and distinguished himself as a PT boat Captain aboard PT 109. Howard Comen entered the fray with Company B 347th Infantry Regiment First Battalion.
Howard was killed crossing the Rhine River at Oberlahnstein on March 25th 1945 when an artillery shell hit his assault boat.

Joe Jr. died in an explosion on a secret mission. "Joe, regarded as an experienced Patrol Plane Commander, and a fellow-officer, an expert in radio control projects, was to take a 'drone' Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives into the air and to stay with it until two 'mother' planes had achieved complete radio control over the drone. They were then to bail out over England; the "drone," under the control of the mother planes, was to proceed on the mission which was to culminate in a crash-dive on the target, a V-2 rocket launching site in Normandy. The airplane ... was in flight with routine checking of the radio controls proceeding satisfactorily, when at 6:20 p.m. on August 12, 1944, two explosions blasted the drone resulting in the death of its two pilots. No final conclusions as to the cause of the explosions has ever been reached. 

John F Kennedy survived the War, entered politics, and was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald on Nov 22 1963- From the Kennedy Library website:

On November 21, 1963, President Kennedy flew to Texas to give several political speeches. The next day, as his car drove slowly past cheering crowds in Dallas, shots rang out. Kennedy was seriously wounded and died a short time later. Within a few hours of the shooting, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and charged him with the murder. On November 24, another man, Jack Ruby, shot and killed Oswald, thus silencing the only person who could have offered more information about this tragic event. The Warren Commission was organized to investigate the assassination and to clarify the many questions which remained. 

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY 2014