"In January 1968, U.S. Marine Ron Kovic was fighting near My Loc, Republic of Vietnam, when an enemy bullet paralyzed him from the chest down. He became one of the war’s best-known opponents. In 1976, the Massapequa, New York, resident published a searing memoir, Born of the Fourth of July. A 1989 film adaptation earned Kovic a Golden Globe for scriptwriting. An advocate for peace and veterans’ causes, he has brought out a 40th-anniversary edition of his memoir and a new book, Hurricane Street, about a hunger strike he and fellow veterans staged in 1974 to protest Veterans Administration lapses."
—American History Magazine
"Hurricane Street is a powerful sequel to Born on the Fourth of July. It is a harrowing, poignant telling of the American Veteran’s Movement and its members’ struggles against the government as well as themselves. The book is a must read in war and peace time. War is hell; peace can be just as brutal."
—Manhattan Book Review
“Kovic is a double hero. He served with distinction and honor in a despicable war. And, once injured, he vigorously protested that his country would send what used to be called ‘the flower of youth’ to be exposed to possible injury or death, and, at the same time, force them to learn one of the hardest lessons of war . . . By his singular acts of rebellion, Kovic taught many of us that the price of international violence is high, for it not only destroys ‘the enemy,’ whoever that may be, but also those who are supposed to be on ‘our side,’ which ever that may be.”
—RALPH Magazine
"Hurricane Street recounts the true story of a group of severely disabled Vietnam Veterans recently returned home from the war, recovering in the Long Beach VA Hospital. This is a true story (some characters are a combination of several wounded veterans Kovic knew during that period) about a rag-tag group of men who stage a sit-in and hunger strike in February of 1974 for 17 days in Senator Alan Cranston’s office at the VA on Wilshire Boulevard, demanding better care for returning Vietnam Veterans."
—The Torrance Tribune
"In Hurricane Street, an equally brilliant chronicle of resistance, Kovic offers a deeply moving account of the struggle of Vietnam veterans to hold politicians accountable to the maimed warriors they sent into harm's way and then abandoned."
—Truthdig
"Throughout the memoir, Kovic focuses on the poor treatment of America's wounded veterans while painting a gripping portrait of early 1970s activism. Though Hurricane Street recalls events from the past, the discussion of veterans' rights remains highly relevant today, with continuing reports of delays and negligence at Veterans Affairs hospitals."
—BookPage
"Forty years after his Born on the Fourth of July memoir came out and 27 years after Oliver Stone's movie got Tom Cruise his first Oscar nomination, the paralyzed Marine sergeant who became a face of Vietnam veterans' anti-war protests is back....In this 'work of both memory and fiction,' Kovic explains his and fellow patients' 18-day hunger strike—against Long Beach's 'atrocious' VA hospital—while occupying Sen. Alan Cranston's Los Angeles office."
—Military Times
"In his farewell letter to the American people, President George Washington warned about 'the impostures of pretended patriotism.' That is the precise warning that another great and true patriot, Ron Kovic, has been echoing ever since he penned his first classic war memoir some four decades ago. In Hurricane Street, an equally brilliant chronicle of resistance, Kovic offers a deeply moving account of the struggle of Vietnam veterans to hold politicians accountable to the maimed warriors they sent into harm’s way and then abandoned."
—Robert Scheer, author of They Know Everything About You
Praise for Ron Kovic:
"Classic and timeless!"
—New York Times, on Born on the Fourth of July
"A great courageous fellow, a man of deep moral convictions and an uncompromising disposition."
—Secretary of State John Kerry on Ron Kovic
"As relevant as ever, Born on the Fourth of July is an education. Ron is a true American, and his great heart and hard-won wisdom shine through these pages."
—Oliver Stone, filmmaker
08/01/2016
Renowned antiwar activist Kovic, a Vietnam veteran, delivers a powerful memoir detailing his organization of the American Veterans Movement (AVM) during the mid-1970s. The former marine, who suffered battlefield injuries resulting in paralysis, describes the inadequate care that he and fellow veterans endured in a California VA hospital. From unsanitary conditions to limited access to resources, a grim profile of an afflicted veteran's situation is candidly explored. Kovic recounts how he rallied other patients to protest their unacceptable medical treatment, including conducting a sit-in of Sen. Alan Cranston's Los Angeles office in order to draw attention to the poor quality of their care. The group eventually resorted to a hunger strike to underscore further their dedication to effecting change. Although the AVM was short-lived, Kovic describes how he and his compatriots attracted national attention that resulted in significant improvement to VA health care. Kovic's best-selling memoir of his Vietnam experience, Born on the Fourth of July, works well as a companion piece. VERDICT This chronicle will resonate with those interested in the all-too-human effects of war and the challenges faced by our wounded warriors.—Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
2016-04-11
The author of Born on the Fourth of July (1976) recounts the brief 1974 movement he initiated to change how Veterans Affairs hospitals cared for wounded soldiers. Kovic (Around the World in Eight Days, 1984, etc.) returned from the Vietnam War in the early 1970s paralyzed from his chest down. Insomnia, anxiety, depression, bedsores, and lack of sexual function also tormented him. During his stay in VA hospitals located in the Bronx and Long Beach, he observed that the "wards were overcrowded and terribly understaffed"; when bed-ridden soldiers called for help, none came. Kovic began to discuss his situation with other patients and soon realized that the poor treatment he had witnessed was a universal problem that cried out for reform. In the spring of 1973, he organized a group called the Patients'/Workers' Rights Committee, which was a success among young Vietnam veterans but became the bête noire of older vets and hospital administrators. The group fell apart after Kovic went home to New York; it received new life after he returned to Southern California that fall. At that time, the author created the American Veterans Movement and began looking for ways to publicize the plight of wounded veterans at the national level. His search led him to the idea of occupying California senator Alan Cranston's office with other AVM members. The sit-in quickly developed into a two-week hunger strike in which veterans demanded a meeting with Donald Johnson, the head of the Veterans Administration. Kovic and his fellow veterans succeeded in making the changes they sought, but the AVM spiraled into chaos afterward, disbanding a few months later after an unsuccessful Independence Day march on Washington. The great strength of this book is that the author never minces words. With devastating candor, he memorializes a short-lived but important movement and the men who made it happen. Sobering reflections on past treatment of America's injured war veterans.
03/14/2016
In this brief but compelling snapshot of early 1970s activism, Kovic recalls the sit-in and hunger strike he led in 1974 to protest the poor quality of the care he and other disabled Vietnam veterans were receiving at the VA hospital in Long Beach, Calif. He sets the mood quickly with references to the era’s music and vivid descriptions of the hospital’s grim environment. Stirred by deplorable conditions and corrupt aides, Kovic eventually writes a book (Born on the 4th of July, the basis for the 1989 blockbuster film of the same name) and organizes the protest depicted here. Kovic selected the site strategically: it was the office of California senator Al Cranston, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, who was up for re-election at the time. The small group of Vietnam veterans, in wheelchairs and wearing combat medals, made for dramatic news footage when they appeared at Cranston’s office one morning and turned it into a “makeshift VA hospital ward.” Without social media or cell phones to boost the signal, it was Kovic’s flair for the dramatic and ability to marshal reporters that turned the protest into a battle victory. His account of subsequent, less successful protests could easily have been omitted, but Kovic’s updates on the fates of his fellow veterans provide a memorable and bittersweet conclusion. (July)
