Juan Romero

Juan Romero struggled for decades with a memory he could not escape. Still haunted by what happened just after midnight on June 5, 1968, when he was on duty as a busboy at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard near Koreatown. That was the night an assassin took aim at Robert F. Kennedy, a candidate for president of the United States. Romero, just 17 at the time, squatted next to the fallen U.S. senator, cradled Kennedy's head, and tried to help him up before realizing how gravely wounded Kennedy was. Romero, who had moved to Los Angeles from Mexico seven years earlier. He became an Ambassador busboy on the advice of his strict stepfather, who worked at the hotel and wanted Romero to be sure to stay out of trouble on the streets of East Los Angeles. The next night, after Kennedy won California's Democratic primary and made a victory speech, he retreated through the kitchen pantry area and Romero pushed through the crowd to congratulate him. He said that just as he shook Kennedy's hand, the shots were fired. News photographers captured pictures of Romero next to the bloodied Kennedy - images that would be seen all over the world. "Is everybody OK?" Kennedy asked. Yes, he said. "Everything will be OK," Kennedy said before losing consciousness. Romero put a rosary in Kennedy's hand.