It was a cold November day. Just about every American with a black and white television set was setting down to watch something never before seen on TV. The burial of an assassinated president.
While the country was preparing to say goodbye to President John F. Kennedy, a local veteran was putting grief aside for the job at hand.
Fred Reimers, an Army veteran now living in Schertz, still remembers that day.
"People saw a funeral in black and white. I saw it in living color."
On November 25, 1963, Reimers was a 19-year-old member of the Old Army Honor Guard tasked with marching in Kennedy's funeral procession.
"In the honor guard, everything you do is done to perfection. How you hold the weapon, how you stand at attention, how you march," said Reimers.
The journey began at the U.S. Capitol building and extended all the way to Arlington National Cemetery. Five decades later, it all comes back.
"We saw the biggest, biggest loss on peoples faces that you could ever imagine for such a long time," remembers Reimers.
It wasn't just the sights, but the sounds seared into his memory.
"The drum beat by that old guard fife and drum, that constant dum, dum-dum dum," recalls Reimers. "That drilled into us, every one of those beats we were concentrating left, right, left, right."
A sound that went on for almost six miles to Kennedy's final resting spot.
"As you focus on the drum beat, you thought about the heart beat, that it's no longer there," said Reimers. "The drum beat became Kennedy's heart beat to keep us moving along."
All these years later, Reimers said it took a long time to realize his role in history, but he prefers to remember the moments while on duty he saw President Kennedy full of life with his family at the White House.
