Before Presidency, Jackie, even before becoming a soldier…who was John F. Kennedy and what experiences molded him into the man history remembers? At just two years old, John became so ill with scarlet fever that his family’s Catholic church read him his last rites. Then again when he was diagnosed with Addison’s disease. And again as his disease rendered him comatose. John stubbornly survived every illness life threw at him, and he spent his recovery time not bemoaning his frailty, but strengthening his mind. From poetry to history, great literature to biographies, John’s reading list grew daily and his skill increased. By presidency, John F. Kennedy could speed read 1,200 words per minute. John and his family were Irish Catholics at a time when that wasn’t a popular thing to be. The bullying got so bad, Rose Kennedy had to transfer John and his older brother Joe into private school. Prejudice against his ancestry and religion continued even into John’s campaign for Presidency, and it may have been their own experiences that lent the Kennedy family the empathy to recognize the importance of and publicly support the civil rights movement of their day. By college, John was a decent student with plenty of friends, but his body still suffered from multiple health conditions. Calamity struck when a disk slipped in his back during a tennis match. He sustained further damage during WWII when John’s PT Boat was struck by an enemy destroyer. Though his back was a constant pain to him, he never complained. When finally the opportunity for surgery on the old injury arose as a U.S. Senator, John returned to his sickbed and used the time to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. Through it all, illness, discrimination, and injury, there was a constant in John’s life: Family. Rose Kennedy, his mother, for whom he had great respect and admiration, was the inspiration for his love of reading and history. He always kept in close touch with his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., a powerful man who passed on a political gene to nearly every one of his nine children. His brother, Joe, nicknamed ‘the future President’ at birth by their grandfather, was his constant companion until the war when Joe was killed in action and his predestined mantle passed to John. And then there was Jackie. Together, the two started their own family, and people who knew John personally described those last years of his life with his children as his happiest. In the end, it was family that molded the man who was John F. Kennedy. The love, support, and no-quit attitude of the Kennedy family was the wind beneath his wings. And he soared higher because he was a Family Man. John F. Kennedy… …An American Hero… …An American Icon… …An American Life… …only from 7k.