In October 1961, in the middle of Basic Training, we were waked, told to pack our gear, and fall in. We marched to a runway and there we sat, under the wing of a C135, for 2 days and 3 nights. We rotated through the mess hall and pooped on orders. We were told to write letters to our families and were given wills to fill out and sign. These were collected, and we were told we would get them back. Or not. We were told there was a situation, and if could not be resolved we would load and be flown to Germany and put into the front lines until the "real" military got there. They never did tell us what was going on; only that we were under full alert and our leaders had been told to expect to deploy.

By way of TV news screen-Bay of Pigs/ John Glenn's orbit/ JFK shooting/ Martin Luther King Jr. shot/ Moon landing/ Beatles on Ed Sullivan/ The blowup of the Challenger/ The blow-up of Federal building/ Waco/ 9-11/ Occupy (participant)/ Bernie Sanders movement (others)

We all witnessed many things through the miracle of tv, but first hand.... I remember the Cuban missile crisis. I remember My parents stocking our cellar with supplies like it was a bomb shelter.

When I was 10 my aunt took me and my brother to see MLK in Boston Common. I had seen blacks on tv and seen them through the car window but never up close in person and here we were surrounded by thousands. I remember it vividly, no recollection of the speech, just the experience.

I was living in Florida and like so many, was outside trying to get a glimpse of the space shuttle when it blew up in the sky.

I was at my place of business in Sarasota FL less that a mile from where G. W. Bush was reading to kids when the 1st tower was hit. Police were detouring cars into my parking lot and searching them for bombs and guns etc thinking the President might get attacked en route from the school to the airport.. One of my employees' son was actually in the classroom being read to by GWB.

Beatles concert in old Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1965, tickets were about 3 bucks. Me and a buddy were taking 2 girls but he didn't make so I went with both girls and it was loud screaming during the whole show. For many historical events that happened I just happened to be home hurt or sick. I watched Jack Ruby kill Oswald on b/w tv as it happened. The University of Texas tower shooter I watched as it happened also on b/w tv. I was high in a hotel room when Kennedy got shot The old desk clerk called up and told me and I just said something like uh-huh and nodded out again. Several demonstrations in DC against the Vietnam war and also for the impeachment of Nixon.After back surgery in 2001 I was watching the today show and watched the 9-11 stuff as it happened. I know there's more I can't think of it all right now.

Epic Moment. Sitting in the science lab watching the moon landing on a black and white tv. Someone had brought the tv into school so people who were interested could watch the event 'live.' I was all but mesmerised by the whole thing. It was a really odd feeling that night, when I looked at the moon, knowing there were human beings up there doing their work.

The last Grateful Dead show.

I was watching on tv when Idiocracy became reality and a tv star with no actual skills became president of the U.S. -__-

I don't know if they really count as epic, but I was in London during the Tottenham riots, so I could see the smoke from the London Eye. And I was in Guatemala when that 6.9 earthquake hit in S. Mexico in 2014, which resulted in older buildings in Guatemala City collapsing and killing people. Although, as a half-Californian, I just woke up, "oh, it's an earthquake", and went back to sleep.

I was at school on 9/11. A guy on my baseball team walked into the lunchroom on one of our days off while we were playing cards. He said a "terrorist" plane went into one of the Twin Towers. I was waiting for another class, but skipped it to walk a few blocks to the promenade across the river from the towers. When I got there, there was black smoke coming from both of the towers. The second plane must have hit when I was walking there, or while my friend was traveling to the school.

I called my girlfriend at the time and got her answering machine and told her to look out her window if she was home because she had a perfect view of the towers. I told her not to go to school because she went to Pace which is about 2 or 3 blocks away from the towers. I stood there watching the smoke for a while and then my girlfriend walked up to meet me at the promenade. We stood there for a few minutes, and then we saw the first tower collapse. I will never forget that sound. It kind of sounded like 1,000 trains pulling into a station all at once. That's the best I can describe it.

The smoke from the collapse started coming across the river, and that's when everyone left that area. As we were walking to her place, we saw people waiting on lines for payphones. Some of them were pretty covered in soot. When we got to her house we were glued to the tv. I remember expecting something else to happen that day, and then worrying about my girlfriend having to go to school down there.

My brother was supposed to work in one of the towers that day, but his job got cancelled.

Going through the pictures in my mind is actually upsetting me. I can only imagine how it is for someone who survived and was in the immediate area of the attack.

9/11 without a doubt

I did not actually see the event, but I was in the Coast Guard at that time, assigned to a division of large coastal patrol boats out of Miami. I was the cook on the boat and the mess deck, the area near my cooking space I was preparing lunch and really did not pay attention to what was on the boat's TV, which was located there. The TV tended to always be on when in port and connected to cable, as officers and senior non-coms came in and out to do their business since there are large tables where everyone eats and makes for good desk space. I had a fellow crewmember doing some cleaning of the eating area and she brought my attention to the TV that had gone to coverage of the Shuttle. She almost started crying when she said that it had blown up. I than paid my attention to it and I guess that before long, they had made an announcement over the base Miami Beach loudspeakers that the Shuttle had blown up. Before long, the entire crew had ceased their work and we all watched the coverage. Not long after that, the Captain got called to a briefing at the OPs center and when he returned, he told us we were set to get underway in a few hours to do some sort of mission off of Cape Canaveral---probably providing a security patrol, but as we had engines running and were ready to cast off the mooring lines---we got the word to "Stand Down" and never wound up heading for the Canaveral area to take part in that. It was a mission that NONE OF US WANTED TO TAKE PART.

Not all the many years later, after having left the Coast Guard, I went to work as a state probation/parole officer for the State of Florida and I wound up getting on my case load---a man was one of the top officials who made the "Go-No Go" decision to launch the shuttle. They obviously made the decision to launch Challenger and that lead to the tragedy of the loss of the ship and all aboard. The guilt and stress the man felt, lead him to commit a criminal act---which I will not disclose--but both of those events in my life were the ways that this bigger event came to have an effect, even if rather remote, upon my life.

I also took part in the Invasion of Grenada down in the Caribbean that Ronald Reagan had ordered to take place, back in late 1983.

Since I lived in Miami in that era, I also was front and center to witness the days of "The Cocaine Cowboys" in Miami at that time. For those who recall the Miami Cops Case in that era----that crime scene happened just a few yards upriver while my one boat was undergoing major retrofit at the Miami Shipyard on the Miami River.

That office building also had a role in two pieces of history--one real and one fictional.

The office we used to set up ship's operations while the boat was all torn up---it is where the CIA ran the Bay of Pigs operation and the exterior of the building---served as the exterior shot they used as the "headquarters" of the special police anti-drug team portrayed on "Miami Vice"

I also did get to take part in the filming of a few episodes of "Miami Vice" and a made for TV movie that aired on CBS-TV that starred a very young Brooke Shields and the late Burgess Meredith. The movie was called "Wet Gold." If you missed it-you did not miss a damn thing--perhaps among the worst things ever committed to film stock!!! A waste of that stuff!!!

One more thing to finish up the thread of the Challenger disaster that ran in my life, when I was doing that probation work, I served in offices located in Brevard and Seminole Counties. Brevard is the county that the Kennedy Space Center is located.

I was assigned mostly to the Cocoa/Rockledge area, for those who know this part of Florida.

As it happened, the day that the first space shuttle to bring the program back to life, the launch was scheduled for a day that I had to run up to our main county office in Titusville, our county seat to either get or deliver some report or other paperwork--lots of that in such a job!

I had the radio going covering the launch and it was just like five minutes before the launch, driving north on US 1, I looked to the east and could see the shuttle sitting out there in the distance. It was just a distant thing on the horizon, but I was able to pull off on side street right along the Indian River, was able to park and I waited for the countdown and saw the shuttle fire off and make its way spaceward.

It was quite awe inspiring to see it go up. It took a few minutes for the sound to reach me but that was impressive as well.

So--between almost having to go do a Coast Guard mission at the scene of the fallen Challenger wreckage, seeing that shuttle take off and not long after, getting that top NASA man on my case load for what he had done----was my bit of being a "witness" and participant in history.

I remember watching the Cuban Missile crisis unfold on TV. I also remember bits and pieces of both Kennedy's funerals. I watched the launch/explosion of Challenger and the descent of Columbia. The first time I was allowed to stay up all night was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

I am hoping that I will be where-ever the launch will be for the first Manned Mars mission. I want to be there personally.

I also worked on the video documentation crew for the shuttle testing at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL for the Shuttle Enterprise (the one that never flew!) and witnessed several launches when I lived in Orlando.

I can recall a lot of historical days. I remember V-J Day in 1045 ending World War II. I was in West Berlin when the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. When the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, I was in the Army Reserve and was placed on standby alert to be called up immediately if needed. I remember the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. The day when Nixon resigned I remember fondly. The day I am looking forward to is the day Trump is impeached.

I shot these photos of MLK's Poor People's March on Washington in 1968, one from the top of the Washington Monument looking down on "Resurrection City".

Saw Ed Sullivan Show-my babysitter went to Beatles concert in Boston and gave me the Beatle touch. She grabbed Paul's boot. Didn't wash my hand for a week.

The day Martin Luther King was assassinated I was with my family in DC and I have pictures of smoke from the Jefferson Memorial. We were on a tour bus and I saw people running through the streets carrying tv sets and people were throwing rocks at the bus. At 14 a day I'll never forget.

John Glen going around the earth.
John f Kennedy getting shot
Martin Luther king Jr getting shot.
Taking down Berlin wall
Aww heck.. I've seen a lot