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| Ron Kovic at the Republican National Convention 1972 |
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| Kovic and others vets protesting at the RNC 1972 |
All three of us sat holding on to each other shaking. We had done it. It had been the biggest moment of our lives, we had shouted down the president of the United States and disrupted his acceptance speech. What more was there left to do but go home?
I sat in my chair still shaking and began to cry. (193)
This was the moment I had come three thousand miles for, this was it, all the pain and the rage, all the trials and the death of the war and what had been done to me and a generation of Americans by all the men who had lied to us and tricked us, by the man who stood before us in the convention hall that night, while men who had fought for their country were being gassed and beaten in the street outside the hall. I thought of Bobby who sat next to me and the months we had spent in the hospital in the Bronx. It was hitting me at once, all those years, all that destruction, all that sorrow. (191-192)
"What's the matter?" I said. "Can't a disabled veteran who fought for his country sit up front?" (186)
It is a war and we are soldiers again, as tight as we have ever been, a whole lost generation of dope-smoking kids in work jungle boots coming from all over the country to tell Nixon a thing or two. We know we are fighting the real enemies this time... (181)
He had given them almost his whole being in the war and now, after all that, they weren't satisfied with three-quarters being gone, they wanted to take the rest of him...It had been one big dirty trick and he didn't know what to think any more. (177)
A song was playing called "Bye-Bye Miss American Pie" and I remember listening to it and feeling real sad inside, real low like I wanted to cry or kill someone. (177)
"I'm a Vietnam veteran against the war," I almost shout back.
"You should have died over there," he says. He turns to his assistant. "I'd like to take this guy and throw him off the roof." (168)
He knew too much about them. He know, goddamn it, like no one else would ever know. They were small men with small ideas, gamblers and hustlers who had gambled with his life and hustled him off to war. They were smooth talkers, men who wore suits and smiled and were polite, men who wore watches and sat behind big desks sticking pins in maps in rooms he had never seen, men who had long-winded telephone conversations and went home to their wives and children." (179)
It was very important to be there putting his life on the line, to be going out on patrol and lying in the rain for Sparky the barber and God and the rest. He was real proud of what he was doing. This, he thought, is what serving your country is supposed to be about. (207)
This is a clip from the Cruise/Stone movie of Ron and the other vets on the Convention floor. Please watch it. And finally watch the last scene from the movie showing Ron going to speak at the 1976 Democratic Convention (which happened after the publication of his book—you can see his picture on the back of the copy Kovic/Cruise signs in the clip).
The narrative of the book is essentially over. Kovic has come to the conclusion of his journey: "what more was there left to do but go home?" The story is not over yet. Kovic has a couple more true stories to tell. Finish the book Monday night, okay?
There's so much we haven't talked about, which is okay: as we watch The Deer Hunter and Alive Day Memories we will refer to Kovic's story. But let's pull some of this together.
1. "Still shaking...[I] began to cry." What's happened to Kovic here? One could argue this was "the moment [he] had come three thousand miles for," and protesting was the vehicle that got him to this moment. Sum it up: what has changed in Kovic? More specifically, how is he different than the protestor who "disgusted" (162) even his friends, who could not even trust his fellow vets after his arrest by the undercover cops, who even asks a woman to marry him?
2. Who is the "they" in his rant on pages 177-179, beginning with "He had been born on the Fourth of July, he had been their Yankee Doodle Dandy, their all-American boy" and ending at the end of section? Quote three times from this section in your response.
3. Going back to #1: why do you think Kovic takes us back to Vietnam? In the Oliver Stone film, shot as a chronological narrative, Ron's experience in Vietnam is at the end of the first third of the film. Kovic's narrative, though, ends with what leads into the beginning of the book: Kovic accidentally killing a fellow marine, the civilian massacre which has haunted him, and finally his wounding. So why? Or perhaps more crucial, what's the effect of this unusual choice for him as a writer?
So finish the book on Monday night. Here's a preview of our next text: the 1978 film The Deer Hunter, directed by Michael Cimino, and starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, and in her first movie, Meryl Streep. It's intense. See you Monday.
ReplyDelete1) In my opinion, at that moment, Ron Kovic has come to a shift in his mentality. In a sense, he finds purpose within himself once again, in something that he believes from personal experience rather than by the influence of other people. In doing so, he is able to recognize his own self worth, allowing his story to be an example for others. Additionally, his actions are based upon for others, informing and stopping others from joining the war, whereas many of his previous actions were from his own desires to feel something that he longed for. HOwever, ultimately, Kovic has learned to accept himself and open up to people, sharing his stories to any person he meets.
2) In a broad spectrum, one could say that he refers to the American people as a whole. However, I believe he uses the word “their” in a more personal sense. I could argue that the word “their” is subjected to his family, more specifically his mother. When Kovic writes, “they were not satisfied with three-quarters being gone,''(177) he could be referencing his mother’s want for the son she had before he had gone to war. On the other hand, he could also be referring to the government in how it treats their veterans. He references how he had “given them almost his whole being in the war”, and now with only one fourth left, the government treated him terribly. One example would be the horrendous environment of the multiple hospitals he attended.
3) I think it once again establishes change in him. It shows that he now comfortable to even mention the story and shows his growth as a person with that alone. In addition, by giving the audience his backstory after we have come to understand Kovic, it further emphasizes the impact war has on one’s mentality. By not explaining the situation throughout the beginning, it draws the reader in, hoping to know what really happened.
I feel like this is the moment where Kovic can find some sort of satisfaction or fulfillment in his anti-war demonstrations, even though it can be argued that he accomplished nothing with his display of resistance. Kovic talks about how winning is so important to him, and to win, one must face and conquer their greatest opponent. Facing the president of the United States of America is the highest Kovic can go, and he faces the president and does not back down. After that competition, Kovic says, “What more was there left to do but go home?” He has done what he needed to do.
ReplyDeleteI am not incredibly sure who “they” are. I think the closest quotes to a direct answer are when he describes they as “the big machine” and “men who wore watches and sat behind big desks… and went home to their wives and children.” To me, the “big machine” is the rapid soldier-making process, where men are rapidly changed from advertised-to children to marines with real, not plastic guns. I think the men behind the desks and the “smooth talkers” who “smiled and were polite” show that Kovic does not refer to his fellow soldiers or even the common American people, as they are not remotely polite to veterans against the war. I think he refers to the people in power in the US government, specifically the president, and especially as President Kennedy was such an influencing factor in his decision to join the war. The president is the beginning and the end for Kovic (Kennedy then Nixon.)
As a reader, I am given the impression that Kovic’s PTSD always goes back to the colonel from Georgia. He describes certain events but he always mentions the colonel, as he will never forget him; he will always be on Kovic’s mind. I think this is why Kovic chooses to relate the story of the colonel so late in the book. It always goes back to the colonel; neither we nor Kovic are allowed to forget him.
Kovic gains agency over himself through the course of this book. He understands now that he was being used and lied to by the government he used to worship, “we know we are fighting the real enemies this time- the ones who have made profit off of our very lives”(181). During his childhood and teen years, Kovic lives a life that was already written out as the “all american boy” childhood. His life was so perfectly American, it almost seemed as if he was a puppet with his life already predetermined. Because he idealized, America he fell prey to the propaganda and lies leading him to the war. In this chapter, not only does Kovic reject the America he loved, but also finds an identity outside of the marines and sports he used to define himself with. He thinks for himself and breaks the group mentality taught by the marines that we were discussing in class.
ReplyDeleteKovic uses “they” to refer to all the people and things that mislead him and lied to him. When he says “they wanted his head and his mind”(177) he could be talking about the propaganda that manipulated his mind into joining the marines. The marines further messed with his mind and made him “confused and uncertain and blind with hate”(178). The “they,” the government, propaganda, and others supporting the war are hypocrites because they were rooting for a war they did not know the truth about, “they had never see blood and guts and heads and arms”(179).
Kovic takes us back to Vietnam only when he is ready to do so. He is able to tell his experience after working on accepting himself through various protests and talking with other vets. Once he has learned to accept himself as an activist, a writer, and a complete human being, he can tell his terrible war stories without fearing that the stories will define him as a murderer or someone who will forever be in the desensitized mindset of a marine.
(1) Kovic has changed from the broken shell of a man without much to live for to a man with a purpose; even if his military service is over, he can still aid his country be spreading the truth about Vietnam. Kovic cries out of relief; he has just achieved a major accomplishment by telling the entire country the truth about Vietnam, and he did so in a room of people who hated him and emerged mostly unharmed. Overall, Kovic has fulfilled his purpose in life up to that point, so he no longer lives in fear about being a waste; he can go home a genuinely happy man for the first time since basic training. He is no longer frantically searching for a purpose in life, like the Kovic who asked Helen to marry him. He is no longer a broken record talking about how the war is wrong; instead, he is a human being who tells his true war story to America.
ReplyDelete(2) In this passage “They” are the agents of Kovic’s indoctrination into the Marines. “He was [his parents’] Yankee Doodle Dandy, their all-American boy (177).” One of the reasons Kovic joined the Marines was his upbringing; as a boy, it is natural to idolize your father, and Kovic’s father served in World War Two. Kovic’s mother also pushed him to be the best he could be; the combination of his father’s military service and his mother’s pushing contributed to Kovic’s indoctrination. “They were small men with small ideas, gamblers and hustlers who had gambled with his life and hustled him off to the war (178-179).” Here, “they” are the Marine recruiters, the movie writers and everyone else Kovic thinks tricked him into going off to war; they were the ones who lied to him, told him war was glorious, yet never told him the cost of fighting. “...he just wanted...to be where they weren’t cursing at him and beating him and calling him a traitor (178).” Here Kovic shows how the same Americans who propelled Kovic into war now attack him for speaking out against it; the people who helped indoctrinate Kovic into the marines now try to silence his attempts to question the system.
(3) From what little we have seen of Kovic’s time in Vietnam, it is clear that it was a confusing, violent mess; a chronological narrative would show Kovic’s life in a far too logical and ordered way. Flashing back to Vietnam periodically throughout the novel shows how the war stays with Kovic; he cannot leave it in the past because it has defined his future. Just as Kovic brings the reader back to Vietnam, the war keeps holding Kovic back from living a normal life.
1. Kovic feels as though he has accomplished something great. Before, he felt helpless as his trust was betrayed and as he and the other protesters were beaten and thrown in jail. He felt alone and like he couldn’t do anything. But now he and his close friends, who he could trust, had “shouted down the president of the United States” (193). He had been interviewed on national television, and he ensured that the population of the country knew about what Vietnam was real like. He feels like he made a difference, and that he isn’t helpless.
ReplyDelete2. “They” aren’t specific people. “They” are the people who conditioned Kovic to think that joining the Marines was his duty to the country, the ones that made the decision to go to war in Vietnam “men who wore watches and sat behind big desks sticking pins in maps in rooms he had never seen” (179), the police who beat the protesting veterans. From Nixon to John Wayne, from the Marines that spoke at Kovic’s school to the man that spit in his face at the RNC “But now he just wanted it to be quiet, to be where they weren’t cursing at him and beating him and jailing him, lying and calling him a traitor” (178). “They” are those that tricked Kovic, sent him to war, and then wanted him to shut up about it when he got back: “now the last thing he could do for them if he wasn’t going to die was to disappear” (178).
3. He mentions the corporal from Georgia many times throughout the text, but refuses to go into detail about it. It makes it seem that, during this time in his life, he was unwilling to come to terms with what he had done to the corporal, and, though he thought about it a lot, would immediately try to push it out of his head. After the RNC, Kovic has changed to the point where he is more willing to think about what happened in Vietnam, and more willing to come to terms with it. That is why he waits until after the RNC to tell the story of the corporal from Georgia, because that was the time in his life when he was able to think it through himself.
1) Here, in front of the man who sent him off to war, Kovic is starting to realize how much his life has changed, how far he has come in such a short time. He is no longer helpless or unable to take care of himself. He has a newfound sense of purpose because of his protests. However, it is important to recognize that even though he has a driving force behind him, the pain that has been caused by the war has not gone away. Nixon is a reminder of that.
ReplyDelete2) “They” refers to the people involved in organizing the war who will never fight in it, will never be injured and lose a part of themselves. Kovic describes these men not as naive or ignorant, but as blatant liars, tricking men into joining the army “like the guy in television who hid the little pea under the three cups, moving them back and forth until you got real confused and you didn’t know where the hell anything was” (179). It also refers to the average American citizen, who feels so passionately about honor and heroism but knows so little about what war does to people, those who have “never seen blood and guts and heads and arms” (179). “They” refers to his family, his mother who gets mad at him for being drunk and miserable when his situation warrants that kind of reaction and more, his mother who worries more about having “a drunk for a son” than a wounded veteran (128).
3) Kovic’s unchronological storyline hints at how his story of healing is not linear. Some days are worse than others, and some days he has to work through something that he may have thought he had worked through already. His trauma will stay with him for the rest of his life, and that cyclical nature of grief and loss is expressed in his writing style. It also adds a semi-chaotic, confusing or off-putting tone to the book; all emulating the chaos of war on a much smaller scale. War doesn’t always make sense right away (or at all), and neither does his book.
1. I think that Kovic has begun to fight for the cause rather than for himself. Before, I think he was overly obsessed with his activism because he was bitter and wanted revenge. However, I think this changes slightly by the time of the convention. He seems to believe in his cause and the anti-war movement. He is also closer to the other veterans than he was before. He is supported by his friends and feels as though he is protesting something meaningful, which is why he cries.
ReplyDelete2. I think that the “they” are the American people who supported the war, more specifically the government. As we read later on in the story, Kovic blames Nixon for all the bad things that have happened to him. Nixon becomes symbolic of all the “men who wore watches and sat behind big desks,” while he was fighting (179). The government was full of people who “went home to their wives and children” and “had never seen blood and guts and heads and arms” (179). Kovic believes that he did the dirty work for these people and that they made him “confused and uncertain and blind with hate (178).
3. I believe that Kovic takes us back to Vietnam because he wants to emphasize that war affects soldiers long after they return home. Kovic will never be able to forget these traumatic events, so why should we? If the book ended with his anti-war days, we might forget the violence of the beginning. I also believe that the Vietnam scene is a powerful one, and it is important to know how the death of his fellow marine affected him. We are able to read about Kovic’s life before some of the violence of Vietnam, so we know more about his identity and how the event changed him. Also, as the story progresses, he becomes able to tell his story to other people. He wasn’t ready to talk about all of the horrors of war in the beginning, so he puts his war story in at the end, as he becomes more comfortable sharing.
1. In my opinion, this moment represents the final shift in Kovic’s mentality. It took him some time, but his experience in the war and the treatment he received in the VA hospitals opened his eyes to the hypocrisy and the twisted nature of his upbringing and the role he played in the war. He realized the lies he was being told and woke up to the reality of the situation. Yet one thing he still clings to is his competitive nature and his need to win. Kovic has protested with this competitive mentality, doing all he can to be noticed, to be heard and recognized by the maximum number of people possible. His disruption of the RNC and the president of the United States represents the culmination of those efforts. Kovic has done all he can, he has succeeded, “What more was there left to do but go home?” (193).
ReplyDelete2. In this passage, “they” refer to the myriad of people who led to his indoctrination and enlistment in the Marines. On a more personal level, “they” are his family, his culture, the society that raised him to be their “Yankee Doodle Dandy, their all-American boy” (177). But “they” are also the propaganda and recruiters who sell him on their “big dirty trick,” who make him “confused and uncertain and blind with hate” (178). Yet, most importantly, “they” are the generals and politicians and leaders of the country who orchestrate the war but do not suffer the consequences, “They had never seen blood and guts and heads and arms” (179).
3. I think that Kovic takes us back to Vietnam in order to demonstrate how to him, this story is not linear. From the brief accounts of the war, we understand that it was not an organized, orderly experience, and neither is reading this book. The fact that the timeline is not chronological illustrates how the war stays with Kovic, it is a part of his past that he can never escape. Some days are better than others, some days he can explore his darkest memories, but he can never forget. That is why he ends with scenes of Vietnam, to remind the reader that ultimately this is a story about war.
1. I feel like in this moment, Kovic finally feels like he has some purpose or has done something meaningful after the war. After he got paralyzed and lost his sense of himself, he thought he would just sit around and be the broken, lonely man for the rest of his life. Now, he feels like he has done something that makes all that he has gone through worth living through. He is not helpless anymore and although he is not the man that he originally thought he would turn out to be, he is now a renewed and revised definition of a man in his eyes.
ReplyDelete2. When Kovic says "they" he is referring to the classic American point of view. The one that does not warn him of the violence and horror of war in the movies that they produce. "He had been their Yankee Doodle Dandy, their all-American boy." The they that tricked him into becoming a marine and now left him when he needed their support the most. "They wanted his head and his mind, the numb legs and the wheelchair, they wanted everything. It had all been one big dirty trick and he didn't know what to think anymore." The they is referring to the American point of view that overlooks soldiers and the war and supports the machine of war and the routine-ness of it, "but the big machine, the one that had given him the number and the rifle, had sucked it out of him forever."
3. I think that Kovic takes us back into Vietnam to show us why he is who he is as the person writing the book. This whole time we are just hearing about Vietnam and his experience and how he was before he was shot and paralyzed but now we are experiencing it alongside with him and it explains a lot about what goes through his head throughout the book: the guilt, the anger, the sadness, the PTSD.
1. Kovic has changed so much from the boy who cried after hearing that President Kennedy was assassinated. The “All-American boy” is no longer. He cries on page 193 because he fully realizes now that his old self has completely died. He not only feels no shame in openly shaming the president of the United States, but instead feels a deep pride in disrespecting the man who allowed him to suffer in several deteriorating hospitals. He was once “real proud of what he was doing”(207) in Vietnam, and after speaking up at the RNC he feels the same sense of pride.
ReplyDelete2. “They” is America, specifically the military. “It was they who are the little dots, the small cheap things, not him and the others they had sent to do their killing”(179). Kovic feels denigrated by the military, with ample reason. He did everything he was suppose to. He was a good Christian. He had confession every Sunday. He was a polite young man. The military made him “a thing” in a uniform (178). The military has used him, and now that he is of no use to them, they feel no need to provide any support. The military’s lack of support makes Kovic feel like they would rather he were dead, or “if he wasn’t going to die [then] disappear”(179).
3. Throughout the book, Kovic talks more and more about the marine he shot. Near the end of the book he returns to this painful memory and describes it in detail. The reader sees snipbites of scenes from Vietnam, similar to how one remembers their past life experiences. No matter how much Kovic speaks up against the war, he can never alter the fact that he killed a fellow marine and helpless civilians, and he grapples with that notion. He feels like the entire war was a sham, and he hates the fact that he was a part of it, and shed blood for the country that gave him nothing in return. In Vietnam, he struggles with the fact that he killed helpless people and someone who fought on his side, but it is not until he returns home and is no longer surrounded by other soldiers that he is forced to confront his actions during the war.
Prompt One: At this point, Ron is definitely different. Here, he says “I am certain I want to be alive forever. I know that no matter what has happened the world is a beautiful place, and I am here with my brothers.” This is a shift in his outlook because before, when he was hospitalized, life wasn’t as beautiful for him: The descriptive language was harsh, and he was all alone, certainly not among any ‘brothers.’ Now, however, he has found a group of like minded individuals, a new family, and life has much more meaning.
ReplyDeletePrompt Two: They? Well… 1st use: “Other people able to laugh and joke.” 2nd use: “Those not paralyzed.” 3rd: “Women who lied to him.” 4th: same as 3. 5th: “People trying to convince him he wasn’t half-dead.” 6th: “Those who brought him home, dead and breathing.” 7th: “America.” 8th: “His country.” 9th: “The rest of the world.” 10-12: “Everyone who tricked him, seeking to finish the job.”
Prompt Three: The choice to include this portion toward the end of the book, as opposed to the beginning, is well thought because it places us, the readers, in a position where we question and wonder about “what went on in Vietnam.” It is similar to the scene with Kovic and Charlie, where Kovic yells “How do you know what I did?” Throughout the entire novel we know he went to war, we know he is paralyzed, and we know he struggles reintegrating to society, but just as Charlie points out, we never know how he got to that point. In a similar way to telling about his childhood after his injury, this decision is great at emphasizing the preceding themes.
I think that this is the moment in which Kovic feels as though his life has a purpose. Previously, Kovic said, “I have given my numb young dick to democracy” to say that he sacrificed his body wrongfully (125). Until this moment, Kovic became depressed because of the idea that he had become disabled because of a bad cause. Thus, this moment marks the first time Kovic feels that he is acting in a meaningful way. Kovic, now, thinks he is doing something positive in his life by protesting the Vietnam war and being a voice for veterans.
ReplyDelete“They” in Kovic’s mind are the people responsible for his entrance into the Vietnam war. Kovic states, “They had never seen blood and guts and heads and arms. They had never picked up the shattered legs of children and watched the blood drip into the sand below their feet,” which implies that “they” are people who have never been to a war and do not understand things that they have made Kovic and others like him do (179). Kovic says they sent him away “to do their killing” as if to say that he bears burdens because of what they have made him do (179). Furthermore, Kovic says, “They had buried the corporal and the children he had killed in the ground” to show that his actions were not a result of his decisions, rather the product of the indoctrination he faced in his early life because of “them” (178).
I think that Kovic writes about the war at the end of the book to show that his war did not begin and end in Vietnam. Kovic’s war began with his indoctrination at a young age and continued long after the war with his struggles to come to terms with his disability. The effect of the order of the book has on the narrative is readers get to know him for the man he has become rather than the man he was. They can see his experience in war through the eyes of a changed and wise man, and see through the lies he was told.
Before, his activism was yet another form of running away and trying to restart his life by going to extremes. He did not believe he was a person, but characterized himself as “the living dead” and an empty thing. Even his activism seemed a bit like a rote activity to let him avoid feeling lonely and empty. He willingly makes himself into a figurehead, but also does not confront his entire story. There are still memories he did not share with anyone. In the chapter before this protest, he realizes that he still does have power. It’s the first time he believes that, despite his life-changing disability, he is still capable, although in a way he probably wasn’t expecting to be. In addition, this realization and the time spent alone seems to have opened the floodgates where memory is concerned; although Kovic is probably still not okay, older, author-Kovic also chooses to finally show the reader what his worst traumas look like in this section.
ReplyDelete“They” are the politicians and men in power who send boys off to war, and are aware, if not of the horror of war, of the practicalities of doing so. For example, Nixon, who Kovic directly calls out in the next chapter. They are “...men who wore watches and sat behind big desks sticking pins in maps in rooms he had never seen” (179). These are the people who decide Kovic’s fate from afar, with very little care for what it means on the ground. After all, “They had never seen blood and guts and heads and arms” (179). Because they only know the numbers of war, and not the actuality, they are able to keep pushing for it and sacrificing other people’s lives for their causes. They are the ones who promote war and promote the advertising of patriotism that accompanies it. They are the ones who know enough to intentionally trick the people. As Kovic says, “They were like the guy on television who hid the little pea under three cups, moving them back and forth...until you got real confused and didn’t know where the hell anything was” (179). He is able to hold the politicians accountable in his mind because they know just enough to do damage deliberately; they are not fooled themselves but also do not know enough about war to understand the cost of their actions.
The order parallels his own journey to confronting the memories. These are the kind of true war stories that veterans choose not to tell when they come home, because they are so bloody and horrific, and people won’t understand or listen. In the beginning of the book, these are the stories that he is also not ready to tell. As the book progresses, Kovic is coming to terms with how he got to where he was and what the war took to him. In the process of getting better, he has to go back to the beginning, but an entire book’s worth of events had to pass before he could get there.