Born on the Fourth of July Read online

  I remember we all sort of stopped and watched for a moment. Then all of a sudden the cracks were blasting all around our heads and everybody was running all over the place. We started firing back with full automatics. I emptied a whole clip into the pagoda and the village. I was yelling to the men. I kept telling them to hold their ground and keep firing, though no one knew what we were firing at. I looked to my left flank and all the men were gone. They had run away, all run away to the trees near the river, and I yelled and cursed at them to come back but nobody came. I kept emptying everything I had into the village, blasting holes through the pagoda and ripping bullets into the tree line. There was someone to my right lying on the ground still firing.

  I had started walking toward the village when the first bullet hit me. There was a sound like firecrackers going off all around my feet. Then a real loud crack and my leg went numb below the knee. I looked down at my foot and there was blood at the back of it. The bullet had come through the front and blew out nearly the whole of my heel.

  I had been shot. The war had finally caught up with my body. I felt good inside. Finally the war was with me and I had been shot by the enemy. I was getting out of the war and I was going to be a hero. I kept firing my rifle into the tree line and boldly, with my new wound, moved closer to the village, daring them to hit me again. For a moment I felt like running back to the rear with my new million-dollar wound but I decided to keep fighting out in the open. A great surge of strength went through me as I yelled for the other men to come out from the trees and join me. I was limping now and the foot was beginning to hurt so much, I finally lay down in almost a kneeling position, still firing into the village, still unable to see anyone. I seemed to be the only one left firing a rifle. Someone came up from behind me, took off my boot and began to bandage my foot. The whole thing was incredibly stupid, we were sitting ducks, but he bandaged my foot and then he took off back into the tree line.

  For a few seconds it was silent. I lay down prone and waited for the next bullet to hit me. It was only a matter of time, I thought. I wasn’t retreating, I wasn’t going back, I was lying right there and blasting everything I had into the pagoda. The rifle was full of sand and it was jamming. I had to pull the bolt back now each time trying to get a round into the chamber. It was impossible and I started to get up and a loud crack went off next to my right ear as a thirty-caliber slug tore through my right shoulder, blasted through my lung, and smashed my spinal cord to pieces.

  I felt that everything from my chest down was completely gone. I waited to die. I threw my hand back and felt my legs still there. I couldn’t feel them but they were still there. I was still alive. And for some reason I started believing, I started believing I might not die, I might make it out of there and live and feel and go back home again. I could hardly breathe and was taking short little sucks with the one lung I had left. The blood was rolling off my flak jacket from the hole in my shoulder and I couldn’t feel the pain in my foot anymore, I couldn’t even feel my body. I was frightened to death. I didn’t think about praying, all I could feel was cheated.

  All I could feel was the worthlessness of dying right here in this place at this moment for nothing.

  THE BACK YARD, that was the place to be, it was where all the plans for the future, the trips to Africa, the romances with young high-school girls, it was where all those wonderful things took place. Remember the hula hoop, everyone including my mother doing it and my sister, yes my sister, teaching me the twist in the basement. Then out on the basketball court with all the young fine-looking girls watching. Then back on the fence for a walk around the whole back yard. Up there! Can you see me balancing like Houdini? Can you see me hiding in a box, in a submarine, on a jet? Can you see me flying a kite, making a model, breeching a stream?

  It was all sort of easy, it had all come and gone, the snowstorms, the street lamps telling us there was no school at midnight, the couch, the heater with all of us rolled up beside it in the thick blankets, the dogs, it was lovely. Getting nailed at home plate, studying the cub scout handbook, tying knots, playing Ping-Pong, reading National Geographic. Mickey Mantle was my hero and Joan Marfe was the girl I liked best. It all ended with a bang and it was lovely.

  There was a song called “Runaway” by a guy named Del Shannon playing one Saturday at the baseball field. I remember it was a beautiful spring day and we were young back then and really alive and the air smelled fresh. This song was playing and I really got into it and was hitting baseballs and feeling like I could live forever.

  It was all sort of easy.

  It had all come and gone.

  POSTSCRIPT

  14 February 1968

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Kovic,

  Just prior to your son Ron’s departure from Vietnam, he very kindly sent me a copy of the letter in which he informed you of his wounds and his paralytic condition. That letter was the most inspirational one I have ever received from any of our Marines in Vietnam—and I receive quite a few. I have written to Ron and my next thought was to write to you to express my sympathy. As I re-read the letter, however, it came to me that, while I quite naturally feel sympathy for Ron and for you, condolence is not what I want to express, but rather gratitude. I am extremely grateful that our country is composed of people like you who can raise so fine a son. Ron’s faith in God, his dedication to his country, and his strength of character reflect the highest credit on the upbringing you gave him. Despite the fact that he is partially paralyzed, I know that his spirit and his faith will continue to flourish and that his future contribution toward a free and peaceful world will be equally as worthy, if not more so, as that which he so gallantly contributed in Vietnam.

  You have my deepest respect and admiration, as does Ron. He is the type of young man of which Americans and free men everywhere can be proud.

  Sincerely,

  L.W. Walt

  Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First, I’d like to thank my friend and editor, Joyce Johnson, for the countless hours, including much of her own time, spent helping construct this book, giving it the necessary shape and form. The book could not have been completed without her help and exceptional skills and talents.

  Thanks also to Roger Steffens—actor, poetry-man, and friend—who gave freely of his time, effort, and energy, retyping almost the entire manuscript up in Mendocino. I’ll remember his patience and understanding, his generosity and love, his faith in me and the book.

  I’d also like to thank Mary and Sheila and my friend Waldo—a child at sixty—who gave me courage with his eyes and love with his wisdom.

  And finally, thanks to Connie Panzarino—beautiful, strong, and brave woman—who believed in me and the book years before it had been written. She stood by me like no one else, listening through nights and days, caring and loving, understanding and encouraging, wiping the tears from my eyes. She was like a light shining from the darkness of what seemed to be an endless storm.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  copyright © 1976, 2005 by Ron Kovic

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  This 2012 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

  nbsp;