Born on the Fourth of July: The Long Journey Home

By Ron Kovic, AlterNet. Posted June 13, 2005.

The author shares the inspiration behind his classic antiwar memoir: 'I wanted people to know what it really meant to be in a war--to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward--not the myth we had grown up believing.'

Editor's Note: Ron Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from the chest down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Along with Oliver Stone, Kovic was the co-screenwriter of the 1989 Academy Award-winning film based on his book, Born on the Fourth of July (Akashic Books). The following is the introduction to the new edition of the book.

It was exactly forty years ago this past September that I left my house in Massapequa, New York to join the United States Marine Corps and begin an extraordinary journey that was to lead me into a disastrous war which would change my life, and others of my generation, profoundly and forever. There are times in the lives of both individuals and nations when we cross certain thresholds where there is no going back, no return to the innocence we once knew; the change is utter and irreconcilable. We often sense these moments. I know I did that day.