Clint Hill: What A Man. What A Life. | The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

A great man has died, who happened to be my friend.

https://people.com/clint-hill-dead-kennedy-secret-service-agent-8620128

His name was Clint Hill, and if you know him, it’s probably because you’ve seen him on television. Clint was Agent #9—the now-famous Secret Service agent who chased down the convertible and threw himself over Jackie Kennedy moments after her husband was assassinated in Dallas, way back in 1963. Clint’s courage under fire was preserved for posterity by Abraham Zapruder, who just happened to be pointing his 8-millimeter Bell & Howell camera at the presidential motorcade on that fateful day. The rest, as they say, is history.

For the unassuming patriot from North Dakota, the resulting celebrity was a heavy burden. Clint had vowed to give his life protecting the people under his protection and took the death of President Kennedy as a personal failure. He shared this with me on my podcast several years ago and talked with surprising candor about the day the PTSD nearly beat him. The day he walked into the ocean, fully clothed, determined to end the pain and guilt he couldn’t shake. The terrible day he swore he would never discuss with anyone.

Of all the great things for which this man will be remembered, nothing, in my opinion, will top the courage he exhibited when he changed his mind sixty years later and decided to talk publicly about the moment he tried to take his own life. I know for a fact that sharing his story has saved the lives of countless men and women suffering in a similar way. I know this because I have heard from those men and women personally. And I know that Clint has heard from them, too. And so, I’m sharing our conversation because I believe that doing so will save the lives of others.

Clint Hill was a man of manners. A courtly man who deplored bad language, always stood when a woman entered the room, and dedicated his life to the service of others. A private man who was loathe to talk about himself but eventually did so with the help of a woman who loved him. A courageous man who guarded five presidents, risked his life every day for two decades, overcame the kind of darkness that many cannot, and carried in his pocket a business card that spelled out the proper way to make the drink he preferred. A legend in the Secret Service, who was, in the words of Robert Frost, “acquainted with the night.”
A man who walked out in rain and back in rain.
A man who outwalked the furthest city light…”
What a man. What a life.

Godspeed, Clint Hill.

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