The Troubling Life of Lee Harvey Oswald

The unmoving grey sky hung above the graveyard as Lee’s father’s coffin was lowered into the ground. He felt tears drip onto his blanket. His mother was crying. She swept a tear from her eye and hugged her son. He did not understand. He was seventy eight hours old.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest president of the USA, is known across the world as a ruthless serial killer, but in this biography, I will dig deeper into his troublesome childhood, and find out why he really killed JFK.

Two months before Lee Harvey Oswald was born in 1939, his father, Robert E Oswald died tragically from a heart attack. The loss of his father deeply affected him, and could be one of the reasons he killed JFK. His mother remarried for three years, and the family moved frequently between 1939, and 1956, causing him to become ‘emotionally disturbed’ and making him commit truancy (not going to school) at the age of twelve. He was then sent to a juvenile detention centre for three weeks. These facts show that he did not have such a perfect childhood.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s family, as I previously stated, moved around a lot during his childhood, and he attended twenty two schools. After challenging work and bullying, he quit most of them repeatedly. Finally, at the age of seventeen, still a child, he dropped out of Arlington High School to join the United States Army Marines, where he was not the most disciplined of soldiers.

During his time in the Marines, Lee was court martialed twice and jailed. After spending sometime behind bars, it was agreed that he could be released and defect to the Soviet Union. He then quit the United States Army Corps, and left to Belarus. He then lived in Minsk for a few years, and then came back to the United States of America, where he lived in New Orleans. While in New Orleans, he was interested in mail order of guns and ammunition, which he used in the assassination.

During his time in Minsk, he married a woman named Marina Oswald-Porter and had two children named June Lee Oswald and Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald. He also had two brothers, Robert and John. He had a loving family, and even though he was emotionally disturbed, he was still loved by some.

On the 24 November, 1963, just two days after the shooting of John F. Kennedy, in a Dallas County Jail, as Lee was escorted to a cell, a junior officer ran forward with a gun and shot, killing Lee. The man’s name was Jack Ruby. He was put on trial but realeased because of the special circumstances of the assasination.

It was a warm, sunny day, yet Lee was still shivering. He was on the sixth level of a childrens book depository, in Dallas, Texas. John F Kennedy was about to drive down the street in an open car, waving at his adoring citizens. Suddenly, the car appeared. It chugged down the road, with John and his wife in the back seat. Lee felt a coil of anger unravel inside of him, watching that arrogant man. He hated him, just hated him. He didn’t feel so bad about killing him anymore. He picked up the gun, and shot...