And he said there's gonna be a big wall. What is it? Then?
Vietnam? And he said that that the Marines are gonna be the first
ones in and ain't gonna last you. That's right. So if you don't
sign up soon, we're gonna miss it. I've already sided. I'm going
in, really just like, uh, I'm not waiting. I'm going in
now. Come on, Rnnie, you're crazy. No, you're crazy.
Our dad's got to go to WW two. This is our chance to do
something, to be part of history. Guys. Yeah, just like our
dads. You should think about what you're doing. You know, Ronnie,
you could be dangerous overday. You know you could get yourself killed. Did
you ever think about that? Where you're going? Squirrel ahead college? Well,
I want to do something with my life. Yeah, I can get
a degree in business administration. And you don't think you need to serve your
country. Don't get my namebody be yourself. Huh? Better dead than red.
And I got missiles point at us everywhere ICBMs. They're coming in all
around US. Cuba now ninety miles away. Ronnie, you're taking up What
are we gonna stop them? Huh? He ain't superman. You can't stop
them away. So sory communism is moving in everywhere. Oh yeah, sure
where Ronnie. I don't see him. They're not right here in massive people.
So I'm just gonna take care of Number one, Jimmy Stevie, Number
Stevie, Stevie. It's okay, because someone's got to stay home with the
women and children while the men go do the fighting. And I'm getting out
of you all. I'm saying you should just think about it, you know,
just think about it, Ronnie, Hey, Stevie. Who are you
taking on? Problem? Wendy danil Wendy Dan Wendy Daniel to go away?
Are you taking Joey? These youths were many youths in the early sixties that
were on the cusp of adulthood. They were faced with the decision to serve
their country, go to college, or just simply work. Many made the
choice to enlist, and that led to them fighting one of the most controversial
wars in American history, the Vietnam War. For the man that is the
subject of this week's film, it led him down a path of despair,
heroism, and ultimately renowned activist. Released in nineteen eighty nine, and based
off the autobiography of the same name. Born on the fourth of July is
the story of ron Kovic, played by Tom Cruise, a man that enlists
in the Marines and serves two tours of duty in Vietnam. It is during
his second tour he is wounded and suffers a severed spinal cord due to a
gunshot. This causes him to be paralyzed and sets him on an eventual path
of activism. Our next clip is from a nineteen seventy seven interview with Kovic
following the release of his autobiography. In this clip, he speaks about his
life growing up and why he chose to serve and the wretched treatment he faced
upon returning from Vietnam. Pop it all off. He was born on the
fourth of July, so that every fourth of July, when the country was
celebrating his birthday, ron Kovak was celebrating his birthday as well a country celebrating
its birthday. Ron Kovak went to Vietnam and served not one, but two
tours of duty, and the second tour of duty, as you may already
know, he was shot twice, once in the foot and the second time.
I think through his back shattered his spinal cord, and he ron Kovak
was paralyzed from the chest down. This experience, that he relates in his
book called Born on the Fourth of July, is one of the most painful
and ugly experiences I've ever read about. And I've wanted to have him here
on midday to share some time with you for a long time. So ron
Kovak is with us. You may remember he nominated Fritz Ephau at the Democratic
National Convention here in New York last summer. Last week, he was arrested
for the tenth time at Kent State protesting the controversy there about a gymnasium.
Ron You know how I feel this. I'm fine. How are you good
to see? I want to share something Normally, if you're one of my
regular viewers, if you watch our show, I'm essentially pretty relaxed during the
interview. I am not going to say what will happen to me during this
I have found reading this book Born on the fourth of July, which I
finished about eight eight twenty this morning, to be a real emotional experience for
me. I could feel your pain as I was reading this book. Let's
not assume that everybody has read the book. Well, let's not assume that
everybody knows everything about you. Let's just find out a little bit about your
I was born on the fourth of July in nineteen forty six, and I
guess you could say it was an all American boy. I love this country.
I believe in what John Wayne said and Howdy Doty Rudy Kuzuti, Sergeant
York. I was a child of the fifties. I can remember you remember
John F. Kennedy ask not what your country can do for you, but
what you can do for your country. I believe that Bill, and I
believed in American I believed that what we were doing in Vietnam was right.
And I went, like millions of other young when did you first go on?
What year did you in? The nineteen sixty four September? I joined
the United States Marine Corps because the ad down at the Post Office said,
the Marine Corps builds men body, mind and spirit. And I wanted to
be a man. And because you were a pretty tough guy. I mean,
you were a very you were an athlete, you were a star ar
wrestler, you were best pole altered at mass speak of high school. I
was a real good wrestler too. Yeah, I know that. So you
joined the Marines, And how did you feel about killing? I mean,
you had played with guns and toys when you were a kid, just like
I had, and just like a lot of people. Well, the first
person that I killed build was an American and I didn't feel good about that
at all. And the second group of people that I killed were Vietnamese children,
and that made me feel worse. But I mean, going into it
run, I mean, you know, the whole mentality, you know,
I believe that. I believe that all of us grew up with John Wayne
with a whole movie cinema image to the Matametel submachine guns that we got every
Christmas. The whole generation was prepped and hyped and conditioned by our culture,
which is so violent and which so romanticizes war. We were ready to go,
We were ready to fight. We thought that the war was going to
be like the John Wayne movies, but it wasn't. It was different.
And when we came home and tried to tell the American public about the reality
of the Vietnam War, that it wasn't a war to help people, but
it was a crime against humanity and against the Vietnamese people. Then they didn't
listen to us. They threw us in jail, They called me a trader,
They spin my face. In the film, following his injury, Covid
is forced to stay at a veteran's hospital in the Bronx, where the nursing
staff abuses drugs. The conditions are horrible, with rats crawling around, impatients
sleeping in their own feces in most cases, and struggling to get even the
littlest things such as a shower. This begins his disillusionment with America and its
government. The next clip we hear is that this does run much deeper.
Covid, while sitting with his childhood friend, reflects on his injury. In
this we can hear the despair in his voice and the issues he has coming
to terms with his permanent injury. When you whend you get hit me?
Uh? January twentieth, Yes, someplace of Jeese, I don't even remember,
near some river up in the DMZ. Walked into Wholeking Battalion, got
shot in the foot, and I just got up, running around like I
was back in the woods again, like I was John King Wayne or something.
Emptying a mag screaming, come on, jolly, this loud crack above
my right ear, and I just felt my body drop out from under me.
Classed. I thought I was dead for sure? Was the h I
was a hospital sucked? I don't really, I don't know, man,
I tell you something, runny. Sometimes at night I get these headaches,
you know, feel bad, and uh, they just they just kind of
come over me, you know, and they like they just they just come,
you know, like I'm going crazy or something, and they I don't
feel I don't feel like me anymore, you know. I I feel like
when they come, I feel like somebody else. You know. Can you
do? What are you doing? That happen? Nothing? The goddamn thing?
Now? Well, mostly I do a lot of drugs. Do anything
you can, you know, honey, you get you get through it anyway.
You know how when I was in the hospital, I thought, yeah,
yeah, this makes sense. What makes sense? Because I failed to
me? What are you talking about? Cause I cause I killed someone some
people I it's terrible mistakes, Ronnie Christ's sakes. We all made mistakes.
I mean, y y, you had no choice. That's something that God
damn Pansy demonstrates. I never gonna understand, Ronnie, you don't even gotta
talk about it. I mean, we was insane over there was it was
crazy. Sometimes I wish I wish i'd first time I got hit, I
was shot in the foot, I could have laid down, I mean,
paralyzed, castrated that day. Why so was so s stupid? I think,
Timmy, I give everything, I believe in everything, I got all
my values, just to have my body back again, just to be whole
again. I'm that whole. I never will be in. That's the way
it is, isn't it? For Christ's sake? Ronnie, to You're alive?
It made it smile. What makes this film truly powerful is seeing the
evolution of COVID after the aforementioned deplorable conditions. His depression, drinking infrequent fits
a rage, causing a strainment from his family. He becomes an activist and
speaks against the war he strongly supported for so long, even a short time
after his injury. Our final two clips show this difference. First, at
a Fourth of July parade in his hometown, ron speaks after returning home.
However, after a baby crying causes a flashback, he stops dead in his
tracks. Then at the nineteen seventy two Democratic National Convention, Ron protesting and
speaks out against his government and the war. Again, I want you all
to hear the difference in words, in tone in Kovak with these two scenes.
What the hands A few words if you prease, It's fun. Covac
lady, you gentlemen, was going on a fourth of July nineteen forty six.
Let's give a big head on his great Burda. I just want to
say for all the guys in Vietnam and we're doing our best. It's not
easy situation, but the boys morale over there is real high, and you
can feel confident that we are we are going to win that war. I
serve my country and I don't want you to feel sorry for me. Do
not shed a tear. I have my hands, my eyes, my ears,
I have my heart, and I have what I feel. I have.
What I feel is an unquiequenchable mud. And now Ron's protest what I
thought name it is not COVID. I'm a Vietnam bitters. My name I
Quebec. I'm a Vietnam Brian. I'm we're here tonight to say that this
war is wrong. Now I'm for to society, lied to me, lied
to my brothers, say the chief, the people in this country, What
has this tricked them into going thirteen thousand miles to fight a low ard against
the poor peasant people who have a proud history of resistance, you know,
who have been struggling for their own for their own independence for one thousand years,
the Vietnamese people. You know. I can't I can't find the words
to express how the leadership of this government sickens me. Whatever I love,
people say, people say, if you don't love America, then get the
hell out. Well, I love America. We love to keep love America
very much. But when it comes to the government, it stops right there.
The government is a bunch of corrupt thieves, and they are racists and
robbers. And we are here to say that we don't have to take it
anymore. Na. We are here to say we are here to tell the
truth. We are killing our brothers in Pina flag Man. We want to
hear the truth tonight. We are here. You're true, so they don't
is this We don't get short this way, we get sam skinning the fish.
We're never gonna let it be. We're not as ready to forget.
You don't want to hear it. Why did you want to hear it?
Because it's here and you're not just super because you didn't like the way it's
like some television. Try this wheelchair, our wheelchairs, This steal our steel.
Is your Memorial day in wheels. We are your Yankee doodle Dad to
come home night. They are you want the doodle days to come home.
I got to go up to make us the people. It's got the law.
Some sort of scuffle or commotions broken out on the floor of the convention.
Disabled veterans protesting the war and Vietnam. We're gonna try to get a
microphone down there. They can't us in the parking lot. Why they're fighting
us because it is too busy in these nine when there is so much of
a tendency the non dominate. Those who observed americ in the past, who
serve it the day. Let's give those who have served the honor and the
respect that they deserve and that they heard. A film this powerful and memorable
defies awards nominated for and won. It supersedes box office straw. But as
is tradition with this show, we shall quickly go over those details. The
film was the tenth highest grossing film of nineteen eighty nine. It was nominated
for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Oliver Stone,
and Best Actor for Tom Cruise, and this is the film that truly showed
his range as a performer. It won for Best Director, which was Stone's
second award, and Best Sound Editing. However, the greatest award was the
one Covoc gave Cruise as a birthday present and for his performance. Kovac gave
Cruise his Bronze Star because he said Cruise showed great bravery in his performance.
Finally, some might be asking why I chose this film for Memorial Day.
I chose this film because there are times that I feel we all have a
skewed view of the military. These young men and women choose to serve this
country. They don't choose where they are sent. They serve, knowing that
wherever they are sent that could end up being the place where they take their
final breaths. To me, the Vietnam veterans are forgotten to a degree.
They deserve the same respect and honor any other veterans have surviving or otherwise,
the only choice they made was to defend us our honor and freedoms. They
didn't choose where they did this, the conditions they were under, and that
is something that we all need to remember, not just on Memorial Day,
not just on Veterans Day, but every day of every year. I hope
you will join me next week when we will finally look at the nineteen eighty
nine film Major League for WMNH and Matt Connorton, Unleashed. This has been
a classic film review with Eric Pilcher