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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe busboy who tried to help a wounded Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 dies.
His life was haunted by the violence of that night, and what it meant in a broader context.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-rfk-busboy-10032018-story.html
Los Angeles Times
By Steve Lopez
October 3, 2018
Juan Romero struggled for decades with a memory he could not escape.
He left Los Angeles and moved to Wyoming, later came back west and settled in San Jose, raised a family and devoted himself to construction work.
But still he was haunted by what happened just after midnight June 5, 1968, when he was on duty as a busboy at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard near Koreatown. That was the night an assassin took aim at Robert F. Kennedy, a candidate for president of the United States. Romero, just 17 at the time, squatted next to the fallen U.S. senator, cradled Kennedys head, and tried to help him up before realizing how gravely wounded Kennedy was.
The photos of that moment, with confusion and despair in Romeros young, dark eyes, made for searing portraits of 1960s upheaval and followed by two months the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and by five years the assassination of RFKs brother, President John F. Kennedy.
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Grassy Knoll
(10,118 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,856 posts)MontanaMama
(23,337 posts)Safe home, Juan Romero.
VOX
(22,976 posts)As if he was somehow selected to assist RFKs passage from this world (he never regained consciousness, and died the following day).
And Juan had to carry that, every day of his life after June 5, 1968 50+ years.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Bless you Juan Romero.
montana_hazeleyes
(3,424 posts)Pachamama
(16,887 posts)the moment captured in the photo will live forever....
I read an interview with Juan Romero years ago when he visited Kennedy's grave at Arlington Cemetery. The events that brought those two together transformed him and was with him forever....
I hope that he has the peace in eternity that he didn't have in life...
Tom Rinaldo
(22,913 posts)montana_hazeleyes
(3,424 posts)Thank you for posting.