Does Ron Kovic Ever Walk Again
For paralyzed Vietnam veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic, 65, the premiere of the film Born on the 4th of July 22 years ago today was the realization of a dream. But the motion-picture show, based on his searing memoir of the same proper noun, virtually didn't get made.
It was in 1977, he said in a telephone interview with the AARP Bulletin from his home in Redondo Beach, Calif., that he first met with a struggling screenwriter and Vietnam vet named Oliver Rock about turning his book into a movie. Al Pacino was gear up to play Kovic, but at the last minute financing barbarous apart. Stone promised Kovic that if he ever made information technology in Hollywood every bit a director, he would tell Kovic's story.
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Photo by Bettmann/Corbis
A look back at Ron Kovic on the anniversary of the 1989 picture show <i>Built-in on the 4th of July."</i>
Stone kept his promise. In 1986, with the breakout success of Rock's Platoon, he was able to get backing and shoot the film, this time with Tom Prowl in the atomic number 82 part.
Kovic and Rock went on to share a Gold Globe award for best screenplay. The film won several other Golden World and University awards.
Born on the 4th of July in 1946, Kovic grew up on Long Island, one of half-dozen children in a staunchly patriotic Catholic family unit. His parents met while serving in the Navy during Globe War Ii. He was an all-American boy, then proud of beingness born on his country'due south altogether, he said. A natural athlete, he idolized Mickey Mantle and dreamed of growing up to play for the New York Yankees. "Nosotros were always expecting to win all the time, simply like America dorsum and then," Kovic said.
Inspired by John Wayne movies and two uncles who had been in the Marines, he enlisted correct out of loftier school and afterward volunteered for a 2nd tour. "I remember thinking how much I wanted to set my own case, similar my father and the fathers of our neighborhood who had fought in Earth State of war II and won a bully victory. And I was determined to go back to Vietnam."
But his life would be changed, "profoundly and forever," he wrote in his book, when he was wounded in Vietnam in January 1968. A bullet tore through his spinal string, paralyzing him permanently from the chest down.
He was treated in the Bronx Veterans Infirmary, where rats ran across the floors of the filthy wards and veterans were left unattended for hours because of staff shortages. In a 1970 cover story, "Our Forgotten Wounded," Life magazine described it every bit a "medical slum."
The "unspeakable" hospital weather, he said, made him question for the first time why he had gone to Vietnam. "It truly fabricated me wonder whether I and the others who had gone to that state of war had gone for zip."
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Photograph by Daryl Peveto/LUCEO
Ron Kovic continues to piece of work equally an antiwar spokesperson.
Activism continues
Afterward leaving the hospital, Kovic attended Hofstra University on the GI Nib and began to read and listen to other points of view. His antiwar activism was inspired by the 1970 shootings at Kent State Academy, and he soon attended his first demonstration.
It was as well at Hofstra that Kovic picked up a copy of All Tranquility on the Western Front and thought, "I've got to write a book like this someday. I've got to tell my story."
Past the time his volume was published in 1976, Kovic was fully engaged in the antiwar movement, and he burst onto the national stage when he disrupted Richard Nixon's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Miami in 1972.
That activism continues to this 24-hour interval. He's been arrested a dozen times over the years, only not recently. War is the "worst possible way" to solve bug, he said. "I'k tired of seeing our young men and women'southward lives wasted in senseless wars. It'south about time that we respect these precious immature men and women who are serving our country and to bring them dwelling house now and not squander their lives."
Energized by the Occupy Wall Street motility, he spoke to the Occupy grouping in Los Angeles several times.
In his apartment simply blocks from the body of water, he spends time working on a sequel to Born on the Fourth of July. Never married, he enjoys going to the movies with his girlfriend of about v years. He also volunteers his time at the Long Beach veterans hospital, where he'due south helping to set up a peer plan for wounded veterans.
The nightmares have all but disappeared for Kovic, just being in a wheelchair for nearly 44 years has meant dealing with increasing physical pain and difficulty sleeping. His sense of humor has sustained him, he said.
For Kovic, each day is precious. "I think that the thrill of living, of beingness alive, the preciousness of life — information technology will continue to sustain me for as long every bit I'm here. I'm going to endeavour to be here equally long equally I mayhap can, and I'one thousand going to effort to give back to a world that I experience has been very kind and gracious to me for as long as I can."
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Kitty Bennett is a news researcher and writer based in Saint petersburg, Fla.
Source: https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-12-2011/vietnam-vet-ron-kovic-where-are-they-now.html
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