Ron Kovic Books

WHEN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD RON KOVIC enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the fall of 1964, he couldn't foresee that he would return from Vietnam paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life. His best-selling 1976 memoir Born on the Fourth of July is an antiwar classic and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Tom Cruise as Kovic. His follow-up, Hurricane Street, chronicled his advocacy for Vietnam veterans' rights, including a seventeen-day hunger strike in the office of the late California senator Alan Cranston. A Dangerous Country: An American Elegy completes Kovic's Vietnam Trilogy, delving deep into his long and often agonizing journey home from war - his physical, sexual, and psychological struggles; his bitterness, loss of faith in God and country, and eventual healing, forgiveness, and spiritual redemption. The book opens with Kovic's never-before-revealed Vietnam diary (July 7, 1967-July 26, 1968). Deeply troubled by the growing antiwar movement in 1967, Kovic decide

Cultural Writing. This New York Times bestseller details the author's life story (portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film)--from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country's most outspoken anti-Vietnam War advocate, spreading his message from his wheelchair. Ron Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Kovic's powerful and moving new introduction sets this classic antiwar story in a contemporary context.

Kovic's impassioned, timely memoir about the American Veterans Movement picks up where Born on the Fourth of July leaves off.

A former marine paralyzed from the chest down as a result of an injury suffered in Vietnam recalls his youth, battlefield experiences, and the agonies of his slow reentry into American society.