Ron Kovic was the all-American kid, born on July 4th,an athlete in school who always dreamed of being a hero for his country like he'd seen in the movies. Kovic joins the US Marines making the rank of Sergeant and is sent to Vietnam where serves two tours. During his second tour in Vietnam, Kovic suffers terrible injuries that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down.

On his return to the United States to a VA hospital Kovic finds himself thrown into a system that didn't seem to care all that much for the young men, who had sacrificed their minds and bodies, in service for their country. Kovic very graphically describes the indignities he suffered at the VA hospital, whether it was lazy aides who left him in a puddle of his own urine, or other staff who refused to respond to these broken men when they needed their medication or a change of bedding. Kovic turns from the all-American boy who loved God and country to an activist who found himself reviled and rejected by his fellow citizens for pointing out the terrible treatment injured veterans were receiving -- being spat on, called a "communist" and a traitor by people who didn't end up serving themselves. Kovic brought a lot of attention to VA hospitals and hopefully things are much improved.

Oliver Stone turned the book into a movie in 1989, with Tom Cruise playing Kovic. In the book Kovic covers all the aspects of his life, his childhood, his time as a raw recruit and in Vietnam, his time in recovery and as an activist all in an easy to read prose. But what seems to be really missing is what exactly triggered him into becoming an activist, he seems to go from patriot to anti-Government protester almost overnight with no real explanation as to why.

This is a book that I've wanted to read for quite a while and its a quick read, with Kovic using first, second and third person perspectives to tell his story. I found this interesting and I'm glad that I've read it but somehow it felt flat, lacking any real passion and it left me with as many questions as it did answers. I also feel that it was a product of its time and is showing its age. ( )

Perhaps coming to Kovic's book so late in the game leaves it to suffer against others. He doesn't shy away from the horrors he suffered upon returning with a life-altering injury. There's nothing dressed up about his narrative - it reads and feels deeply personal, conflicted. Is it possible to have read too many of these stories, to become somewhat immune to the telling of them? And, then, doesn't that sound like a new betrayal all over again. I don't know - I just wasn't particularly moved by Kovic's book, whatever that means.

3 bones!!! ( )

It's a bit hard for me to believe that I hadn't read this book already. There was a time in the 1980s that I devoured everything I could read about the Vietnam War. It was fascinating to me in its horror, grotesqueness and absurdity. I guess the fact that I turned 18 in 1973, thus missing the draft by only a single year, somehow added to that. (A draft lottery was held that year just in case the U.S. government/military changed their minds -- I got a high number, a good thing.) Anti-war activist or pro-war flag waver, I think one of the big dividing lines between American generations is whether or not you grew up with the Vietnam War draft hanging over your head (or the heads of one's children).

At any rate, I came upon my paperback copy of this book on my memoir shelf and realized that I'd never actually read the thing. It only took me three or four sittings to finish this. Kovic is a very effective writer. This work is extremely powerful. There's nothing dated about it now, and it's easy to see why it gained such attention then. The memoir begins with the moment Kovic is wounded during a firefight and immediately loses all feeling from the middle of his chest downward. The horrors of life in a VA hospital and the darkness that descends on Kovic as he grapples with the realization that his condition is permanent are graphically and powerfully rendered. Kovic also flashes back to his (in the telling) idyllic Long Island middle-class upbringing that led him to the patriotic "God and Country" perspective that drew him to the Marines and to enthusiasm for the war in the first place. He details his life for the first decade after his wound, including his evolution into a strong anti-Vietnam War activist, in often compelling fashion as well. As an anti-war statement and a chronicle of personal darkness and perseverance, this memoir stands up very well, indeed. ( )

I picked up this book to see the transformation of a patriotic GI into a Vietnam Veteran Against the War. I wanted to learn how the movement enticed him, when he had his epiphany, and how he reacted to the rest of the anti-war movement. I wanted to read the author grappling with the decision to join the anti-war movement.

Unfortunately, the epiphany lasts only a couple of pages, and the conversion from skeptical injured veteran to strident anti-war activist is pretty sudden. Only one seven page chapter is devoted to his "conversion." Near as I can tell, only one sentence deals with him grappling with his dual life as a patriotic GI and as an anti-war veteran: "One part of me was upset that people were swimming naked in the national monument and the other part of me completely understood that now it was their pool, and what good is a pool if you can't swim in it." Hardly emotionally tugging or complicated prose.

Kovic's book is authentic, written by a real paralyzed veteran, and Kovic's anti-war barnstorming is interesting to me as an anti-war civilian. But everything good about this book can be gleaned from the book "Johnny Got His Gun." In fact, Born on the Fourth of July refers to "Johnny Got His Gun" directly: "It was as if the book was speaking about me, my wound and the hell it had been coming back and learning to live with it." Yes. It was. ( )

The true story of young Marine Kovic, who's combat injury in Vietnam left him paralyzed from the chest down. The writing can be stilted sometimes but that doesn't stop the reader from feeling the impact of Kovic's story. The first two chapters are very difficult, as they take place in the battle when he was shot and surrounded by other wounded men, then the treatment he received in the VA hospital immediately afterwards, which was just as horrifying as the battleground. I actually put the book down for about a week and wondered if I'd keep going, but then figured that he lived it and all I had to do was read about it.
Kovic's story was published over 40 years ago, and it's probably more introspective than most, as he deals with isolation, loneliness, grief over the loss of sexual functioning, and his desire to be seen as a symbol of the war. 4 stars ( )