JFK's agent speaks out on 55th anniversary of assassination: "I should have been faster"
<p>The secret service agent, who leapt to shield President John F Kennedy after he was shot, has spoken out about the unforgettable turn of events on the 55th anniversary of the assassination.</p>
<p>Agent Clint Hill was the first to react, jumping out of a following car and jumping on the back of the presidential limousine, after former marine Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger at President JFK three times.</p>
<p>However, before Mr Hill could position himself as a human shield, a bullet pierced the President’s head.</p>
<p>In an interview with <em><a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/"><strong><u>The Sun</u></strong></a> </em>on the anniversary of the assassination, now 86-year-old Mr Hill said he will never be able to forget the day that changed history.</p>
<p>“One thing that I’ve never been able to erase from my mind is being on the back of the car looking down at the president, who was lying with his face in Mrs Kennedy’s lap,” Mr Hill said. </p>
<p>“The right side of his face is up and I can see that his eyes are fixed. There’s blood everywhere.</p>
<p>“I can see the gunshot wound. In the room that’s in the skull I can see that there is no more brain matter left,” he said. </p>
<p>“That is something I could never, and have never been able to, erase from my mind.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 405.6666666666667px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7822094/image_.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/2cdb89303572412e8d02e6d3b4fd492c" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Clint Hill</em></p>
<p>“At the time I never thought ‘I might be killed’ or ‘I won’t see my kids again’,” Mr Hill said.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think of that at all. That was the farthest thing from my mind. My goal was to get there to form a cover for them so no more damage could be done.”</p>
<p>The former secret service agent also discussed the guilt he still feels today for not being fast enough.</p>
<p> “I think I should have been faster,” he said. </p>
<p>“My job was to protect them and I was unable to do that.</p>
<p>“If I had been slightly faster I may have been able to prevent the president’s fatal wound and that has bothered me ever since. It always will - I’m sure.”</p>
<p>Mr Hill also discussed the impact the assassination had on his personal life after suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.</p>
<p>From 1976-1982, Mr Hill cut himself off from everyone in his life except for his wife and two children.</p>
<p>"I self medicated with alcohol during that period of time,” Clint confessed. </p>
<p>“I just didn’t care about anything and I didn’t want to have any contact with anybody.</p>
<p>“Friends would come by and I wouldn’t even acknowledge that they were there. I just ignored everything.”</p>
<p>In 1982, he was slowly able to reclaim his life back.</p>
<p>“I quit drinking, quit tobacco, started to work out a little bit. And I began to gradually get better and better,” he said. </p>
<p>“And finally by 1990 I was able to go back to Dallas and walk the streets of Dealey Plaza up into the Texas School Book Depository and look up at the sixth floor window where Oswald shot from and then come away knowing that I had really done everything I could do that day.”</p>
<p>Mr Hill said the secret service have a much harder job to protect the President today.</p>
<p>“The challenges are much greater to protect the president, whoever it might be,” he said. </p>
<p>“And the fact that President Trump does generate a great deal of animosity from various sections of society, it is something that is very concerning."</p>
