Word: kovic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Kovic...
...slapped with extradition papers from his Oklahoma draft board. He finally had his name placed into nomination for vice president, after refusals by Ramsey Clark and Milton Shapp, by paralyzed Vietnam vet Ron president, after refusals by Ramsey Clark and Milton Shapp, by paralyzed Vietnam vet Ron Kovic. At the end of the week, Efaw found that the charges against him had been dismissed because his draft board had failed to keep him properly informed on his status as a conscientious objector...
...efforts reach a culmination with the 1972 Republican National Convention. It is an emotional moment. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War, having converged from all over the country, assemble around the convention hall. Most are shut out, but somehow Kovic manages to enter. Enraged, near tears, he protests furiously, crying out at the awkward and indifferent Nixon delegates. "Look at me, look at your war!" The television cameras catch sight of him, Roger Mudd of CBS approaches, and for two minutes of national television all the pent up shame and rage and grief gushes...
MOST OF THE TROOPS who fought in Vietnam were like Ron Kovic, young, working class men who were either unable to obtain an exemption or, more likely, thought it an honorable or decent thing to fight willingly. The moral choice that more educated and wealthy individuals faced was whether or not to resist induction. For the most part, they did not go. Thus those who would be most prone to write of their war experiences never saw Vietnam: theirs is a literature of protest. A great silence lies over the fighting man's tour in Vietnam. It is not that...
...enduring piece of literature. A certain ideological simplicity mars what is otherwise a powerful commentary. His narrative often wanders into reminiscences that seem trivial. But precisely for these reasons, Born on the Fourth of July succeeds and is memorable. An intimate and convincing portrait of Kovic emerges: we permit him his autobiographical indulgences as well as his justified outrage. This serves to continually remind us that he is a real man choked with sincere anguish, longing to be heard, and not a literary fiction. Look at me, Kovic seems to say, and never forget the war that made me what...