Ron Kovic

This volume completes the trilogy of Kovic books. I had not read the intermediate book “Hurricane Street” but I don’t feel bad about that. “A Dangerous Country” is a radical reworking of “Born on the Fourth of July” which itself was a great book although marred by major flaws. Born on the Fourth of July is a book written soon after Kovic came back home from his combat tour and finished most of his recuperation. He details how he naively went to war and was horrifically maimed for life and the hard transition to civilian life that he had to undertake. “Born” has a pronounced divide when he changes his narrative voice and his persona. So pronounced is the change that it is almost unbelievable and feels like a fictional account. Many books reveal this change. This does not make them bad books to read. A recent book I can think of along this vein is “Peace Mom” by Cindy Sheehan. Many Vietnam War memoirs did not want to disparage the memory of their fallen brothers in arms. Being critical of the war command structure or the political leaders was one thing but to speak against the valor of the infantry or marine heroes was out of the question. “Born”’s second half had the unfortunate result that Kovic had adopted the antiwar sloganeering of the radicals, peaceniks or worse, communists. Since there was no description of his own evolution of thought or honest struggle with the big questions of the war and why he was there, the book ends on a negative note when it shouldn’t have. In “A Dangerous Country” we find out why that was. Kovic had been silently dealing with his own personal doubts that he had, possibly and accidentally, killed one of his own marine brothers as they were retreating under fire. He just assumes that he did. He uses his own feelings of guilt as a measure to test if his actions were culpable or not. This is never a good nor objective test of moral action. In “A Dangerous Country” Kovic uses his exact words in a diary he kept during his time at the Vietnamese DMZ. This was absent from the first book. This book does show Kovic’s heroism in the struggle to live with his actions and come to peace with his conscience. So Kovic was a catholic and was so attuned to prayer that after he finished his combat tour he was planning on becoming a Catholic Priest. His injuries changed all that, however. There are many things that I identified with reading this book. Beises struggling with his belief system, there was the urge to a priestly vocation, there was the fact that he wrote “Born” while living in Santa Monica, California. He also lived in Venice, California which is something I also have done. He also said that before he shipped out to Vietnam for his second tour of duty, he visited Disneyland. I’ve read many Vietnam memoirs. I find them all very meaningful since there was a time when I wanted to know what the US was doing there. And more importantly why did everyone have to be programmed to hate Vietnam vets when they came back home. I have a good idea now, but the US post-Vietnam era was not filled with the compassion I would have presumed to expect. We now know that the Soviet Union actually spent money on promoting anti-war propaganda. Usually the Soviet Union relied on American dupes to spread their anticapitalistic destabilization or espionage activities as was seen in the recent movie “Oppenheimer.” The Vietnam War era was the one time that Soviet money paid off. So, in “Born” I read one of the scenes that has stuck in my mind for years. Not all war memoirs do this, but Kovic did in one of his descriptions. He said that when he was injured during that fateful firefight he fell down and couldn’t move his legs. It sounded like he was about to describe his legs being blown off (his spine was severed by the rifle round probably an AK47 bullet). Instead, he remembers that a Marine coming toward him, an African American marine who he never identifies, picked him up with one hand and carried him back to a secure area. To me that felt like it was a perfect description of divine intervention, with God as a Black Man. God as US Marine. It is horrible what Kovic had to endure for decades afterwards but I am still glad he wrote those words on the page for me. That is a mysterious account that seems to have so many unanswered questions. Kovic does not revisit the part of the story again in “Country”. But the whole book is an in-depth revelation of his doubts and anger and mental illness symptoms and hopes for a better future for himself post injury. This book is meant to complement the other volumes in the trilogy but I still favor “Born” for the episode referred to above. “A Dangerous Country” is Kovic coming into his own as a writer and that is something to be commended. I really enjoyed this book while “Born” was something to be feared and astonished by, in my opinion. The was a movie about “Born” starring Tom Cruise and I am sure I saw it but I need to rewatch it. The injured soldier in a wheelchair that most people remember is LT Dan from Forrest Gump. I’m not saying Kovic has refashioned himself into LT Dan, because Forrest is a fiction, but Kovic has given we readers something even greater to be proud of. The book ends with Kovic over that Long Beach, California VA hospital. It is right next to California State, Long Beach University, which I used to attend. There were so many coincidences in this book to my own personal life that this book was almost a spiritual retreat for me to ponder over. Kovic had been trying to write The Great American Novel that all writers chase after but produced this memoir instead. I am glad he chose this work to stake his claim as a writer. “A Dangerous Country” is a book which straddles the Vietnam War and the aftereffects of the war upon one injured infantryman. Many Vietnam memoirs focus on the war and a few years afterward. Take advantage of the effort put into writing this to see that war memoirs are not the only thing we can learn from our many Vietnam veterans. Due to some descriptions, this book would not be appropriate for under 18 years of age. I often say a prayer for the unnamed Marine who picked up Kovic and brought him back to us.… (lisätietoja)

civil-unrest, disabled-vet, LibraryThing, NamVets, PTSD, read, self-identity, self-worth-issues, short-stories, unputdownable, Vietnam-war*****

Like all those who fought in this war, he faced enemies there and hateful demonstrations from many at home. His goal in serving is to protect his nation from communism. As a two tour USMarine in Vietnam he suffers severe injuries which render him a paraplegic, but good old McCarthyism rears its ugly head and he winds up having his phone tapped and arrested for loudly voicing his beliefs. This about the time when Kovic starts to question the reality of God. The remainder of the book recounts his time since then.
I have known and worked with many returned vets, especially the uninjured who migrated into law enforcement or health care. Ron Kovic continues to serve as a voice for all of the NamVets.
I won a print copy from Akashic Books in a LibraryThing Giveaway. Thank you!
Available 02/13/2024 The earlier books are: Born on the Fourth of July and Hurricane Street.… (lisätietoja)