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To family and friends, Jack Kennedy always seemed to be sick and dying. Yet he exuded an ironic joy in life. Both the weaknesses and strengths of his character drew on his deeply held belief that death would come soon.

"The point is," he told a friend during a long talk on death, "that youâ€™ve got to live every day like it's your last day on earth. That's what I'm doing." From that perspective, he could indeed be reckless, as he was in sexual escapades that after his death would become a media focus on his life.

He could also be courageous to the point of heroism. Death was not to be feared. As president, he often joked about his death's approach. The angel of death was his companion. By smiling at his own death, he was free to resist others' deaths.

John Kennedy's World War II experience was characterized by a willingness to give his life for his friends. Two years before the Hiroshima bombing, Kennedy was a PT boat commander in the South Pacific. On the night of August 1-2, 1943, he was at the wheel of his PT 109, patrolling Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, a corridor of water used by Japanese destroyers.

It was a moonless night. A ship suddenly broke through the black, headed for the 109. As a man forward shouted, "Ship at two o'clock!" Kennedy spun the wheel. The Japanese destroyer smashed into the 109 and cut a giant strip off its starboard side. "This is how it feels to be killed," Kennedy thought, while being thrown through the cockpit.

Douglass, James W.. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Orbis Books.