John F Kennedy example essay topic

A wise man once said, "Ask not what your country can do you for; ask what you can do for you country". The man was the main m contributor in creating the Kennedy Space Program, which expanded NASA. This man was the 35th president and the first Roman Catholic in office. Though not able to finish the process, this man started the civil rights movement, leading to the end of racial discrimination.

This man was the fourth president to be assassinated president in US history. This man passed many laws applying to the civil rights movement. This man believed in America. This man I speak of is worthy of not only honor in his personal life, as being a loving husband to his wife Jacqueline and father to his children, Caroline, John Jr. and Patrick, but being a fair competitor in the race for president in 1960. He was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics on May 29, 1917. He and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged childhood of elite private schools, sailboats, servants, and summer homes.

During his childhood and youth, "Jack", as he had otherwise been come to known as, suffered frequent serious illnesses. Nevertheless, he strove to make his own way, writing a best-selling book while still in college at Harvard and volunteering for hazardous combat duty in the Pacific during World War II. Jack graduated from Choate and entered Harvard in 1936. Kennedy's war service made him a hero. After a short period as a journalist, Kennedy entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1961.

Kennedy was the youngest person elected as U.S. President and the first Roman Catholic to serve in that office. For many observers, his presidency came to represent the spring of youthful idealism in the outcome of World War II. The promise of this leader was not to be fulfilled, as he was assassinated near the end of his third year in office. His shocking death stood at the forefront of a period of political and social instability in the country and the world. He ended certain discriminations; on buses, in housing, voting, education, and racial discrimination leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964; passed after his death. This man no other than the late John F. Kennedy He believed in childhood education.

Believing that, "A child miseducate d is a child lost". I, for one, commend him on his commitment to education. He believed in looking to the future. "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future". He believed in a good future for America by matching our strengths to our weaknesses, saying, "I look forward to a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose".

Despite a life-threatening chronic illness, John F Kennedy managed to use determination and perseverance to accomplish many things. In 1943, when his PT ship was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety. Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953, while recuperation from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights.

With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. This solution of the peace Corp would, in his own words, .".. be a pool of trained American men and women sent overseas by the US Government or through private institutions and organizations to help foreign countries meet their urgent needs for skilled man power". On July 20, 1963 at Berlin's Rudolph Wilde Platz, President Kennedy said, "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner". Translated into English... means "I am a Berliner". He also told the West German people and the world: "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in... ".

To meet his ambitious goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade, John F. Kennedy greatly accelerated the space program initiated by the Eisenhower administration. No matter what happens, this country will always remember his contributions to the space program, the end of racial discrimination, the Peace Corp, and to this entire country. His ideas have helped form what we are today. He believed that, "A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on". In his case, it was true.