Somebody had fired a shot at the President, and I had to get myself between the shooter and the President and Mrs. Kennedy. Nothing else mattered.

Clint Hill was a Secret Service Agent primarily tasked with guarding Jacqueline Kennedy. In Dallas he was walking along just behind the left side of the open top Lincoln. He, and the other Secret Service agents, were walking along behind the car because the running boards they often stood on were retracted.

When the shooting started, the video shows Hill running to catch up to the car and secure Mrs Kennedy when she reached back on the trunk to retrieve a portion of the president's brain. From that point on, there was nothing he could do to save the president and he was only vaguely aware of the number of shots.

He understands there was nothing he could have done differently but still carries the frustration of not being able to save the president.

Five Days in November: In Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of JFK's Assassination
by Clint Hill, Lisa McCubbin Hill

On November 22, 1963, shots were fired in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the world stopped for four days. For an entire generation, it was the end of an age of innocence.

That evening, a photo ran on the front pages of newspapers across the world, showing a Secret Service agent jumping on the back of the presidential limousine in a desperate attempt to protect the President and Mrs. Kennedy. That agent was Clint Hill.

Mrs. Kennedy and Me
by Clint Hill, Lisa McCubbin Hill

In those four years, Hill was by Mrs. Kennedy’s side for some of the happiest moments as well as the darkest. He was there for the birth of John, Jr. on November 25, 1960, as well as for the birth and sudden death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy on August 8, 1963. Three and a half months later, the unthinkable happened.

The one vivid image that never leaves Clint Hill’s mind is that of President Kennedy’s head lying on Mrs. Kennedy’s lap in the back seat of the limousine, his eyes fixed, blood splattered all over the back of the car, Mrs. Kennedy, and Hill as well. Sprawled on the trunk of the car as it sped away from Dealey Plaza, Hill clung to the sides of the car, his feet wedged in so his body was as high as possible.