John Lennon Shot Dead

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of those days you remember where you were when it happened.

...

I wasn't alive when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I was only a few years old when man walked on the moon. Later in the 80's I remember the Challenger explosion, and the shooting of President Reagan.

I remember hearing about the shooting death of John Lennon in school the next day, but I don't think it impacted me as much as those just a few years older, and certainly not as much as it would if it happened today. At the time, he was just one of The Beetles, and I didn't have a proper respect for what that meant.

What struck me at the time was how he was shot in the back. I'm not sure what would make a guy want to shoot John Lennon, who was just a guy who played music and tried to get people to realize that peace could happen through rather peaceful means.

I don't really understand the need to kill each other anyway. I get that it's the ultimate deterant; no one can do anything after they're dead--at least not on this plane of existence. I understand trying to put that most definate stop on someone trying to do harm to you and yours; that was what allowed me to go into the service--I didn't believe that we were unprovoked aggressors at the time, and that anyone who died in opposition to us was trying to do us harm.

I don't get shooting a musician who's only apparent crime was drug use. Not that I think lightly of drug use, but it's certainly not something I put in the vigilante justice category.

It boggled my mind then, and now.

Only now I see the impact of a world without Lennon a little more than I did then.