“I was onboard ship in the Gulf of Tonkin when Kennedy was shot, the Carriers were launching F-16’s as fast as they could, months before that happened.”
You may have been onboard a ship in 1963 but you sure as hell were not launching F-16s, because they were not even produced until the mid 1970s.
Old age slip F-14's and Many Prop planes old WW II Corsairs I think. Hey it has been 50 years. But a darned sure was there.