Movie director Oliver Stone’s 1989 film “Born on the Fourth of July” is a vivid screen adaptation of antiwar activist Ron Kovic’s autobiographical account of his idealistic dreams of war to becoming the damaged bitter war veteran. This film review follows Stone’s story line of portraying the evolution of Kovic from a young boy playing war with his friends in 1950s Massapequa, Long Island, to his eventual recognition and acceptance as an articulate and respected antiwar activist. For many of the people today, references to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are little-known history because this generation wasn’t even born yet, which makes the movie somewhat outdated and irrelevant for them, but very poignant to those, such as Oliver Stone, who lived during those times.
Stone goes for graphic cinematography throughout the movie by pulling in the audience through “in your face” shots of Kovic’s life. Beginning with boys playing “war” in the wood, the visual effect of sunlight filtering through the leaves of the surrounding trees, makes it a very surreal setting in Massapequa, Long Island in 1956. At the Main Street Fourth of July parade, post-WWII and Korean War, military members and veterans in wheel chairs are in the parade. People on sidelines are cheering for the military (which will not happen upon Kovic‘s return from Viet Nam). Firecrackers pop and explode, causing one wheelchair-bound veteran to visibly flinch (a foreshadowing of Kovic‘s own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). To make a more political statement of the horrors of war and what was to come, Stone should have focused more on the physical damages of these veterans to make a more dramatic foreshadowing of what was going to happen to Kovic. Young Ronnie Kovic, on his father’s shoulders and waving a small American flag, sees the one veteran’s reaction to the firecracker and he is surprised. Another veteran with no arms walks by. More close up visual of damaged vets here would have been more effective for us, the audience.
Stone shows us a slice of innocent childhood at Ronnie Kovic’s birthday celebration when he is given a New York Yankees baseball cap (very Americana) and is called “Mickey Mantle,” who at the time was a famous Yankees baseball player, which dates this movie because this would not be common knowledge now unless one was a baseball follower. Dad calls him a Fourth of July firecracker; Mom says, “My little Yankee Doodle Boy.” Stone repeats the theme of Americana with Ronnie playing baseball and hitting a homerun. In post-war America, everyone owns a house in the suburbs. No war worries. The Kovics are sitting in their living room around their one small black-and-white television, watching JFK give his inauguration speech. Mom looks at Ronnie and says, “I had a dream, Ronnie, that you were speaking to a large crowd. And you were saying great things.” Excellent exemplification of foreshadowing by Stone here, who also recalls for us a simpler era when there was no color television, only seven channels, and only one television per household.
Ronnie is on his high school wrestling team for which we see him vigorously train and excel. He is told, “If you wanna be the best, you gotta sacrifice.” Marines come to school to recruit for the brewing war in a little-known Asian country called Viet Nam. The recruiter in his dress uniform is impressive and tells the eager young high school seniors what they want to hear, “The Marines are the first to fight and we have never lost a war.” Ronnie tells his friends, “Our dads got to go to World War II. This is our chance to do something. Be part of history, guys! Just like our dads! If we don’t hurry up and sign up, we’re gonna miss it!” This is Stone’s bitter foreshadowing of the long war it turned out to be, and again this shows the history for which today‘s generation only reads about it.
Ronnie works at the A&P Market and he tells a bunch of girls that he enlisted and will be going to war; “My Little Soldier Boy“ is playing in the background, a well-chosen touch by Stone to reflect the innocence of whose who wait at home for their soldiers to return from war. While Ronnie is home, packing to leave for boot camp, his brother is playing a guitar and singing “The Times They Are a Changing.” And they will be for Kovic who tells his dad, “Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to serve my country. I want to go.” Kovic is the fresh face of youth and innocence as he prays to the cruifix on the wall in his room. He does not yet know the horrors of war. He runs through the pouring rain to the Prom for one last dance with Donna, the girl for whom he has had a crush on, who gladly embraces him for this rite of passage. Is the pouring rain the symbolic washing away of youth and cleansing him for what is to come?
Stone graphically shows us what Kovic thinks he is fighting for in Viet Nam- near the Cua Viet River, October 1967 on Kovic’s second tour of duty. His platoon is outside a village that his commanding officer says is full of Viet Cong who are pointing rifles. “See the rifles, Kovic? Huh? See them??” Confused but trusting, Kovic and his men attack the village, but he is shocked to find nothing but women, children, and old people; most of them dead, or wounded, blood everywhere; a small crying baby is the only survivor. He sees the horrors of war in the innocent. Running back through the sandy dunes the sun is in his eyes; in a moment of confusion and panic, he accidentally shoots and kills his own man. He is shocked, disgusted with himself, and discouraged when his CO later reminds him the VC use villagers as cover. Kovic says he thinks he killed Wilson in a state of confusion and panic. CO chews Kovic’s butt for confessing he killed Wilson, and refuses to acknowledge Kovic’s confession. “Friendly Fire” as it is referred to in the military has been and still is more common that we like to believe, however now we are hearing more about it and we are not as accepting of it as in the past. This dates the movie in which we used to accept what the military did as “it had to be done” (my words), but now we as civilians question what goes on.
In January, 1968, while out on patrol they are under fire from a village, he is shot and a buddy carries him to safety. That night in triage, surreal surroundings in a medical field hospital, Kovic is lying on a stretcher, covered in blood. The Field Chaplin stops by his stretcher and says, “Try and stay alive. I’m giving you last rites. Ready?” Stone shows the fear and disbelief in a closeup of Kovic’s face.
Kovic makes it to the Bronx Veterans Hospital in 1968, where young veterans are in wheelchairs. Stone shows the deplorable conditions in the paralytic ward-- a rat running around on the floor, guys shooting up heroin in a closet, orderlies ignoring patients and playing cards. Paralyzed Vets are lined up on gurneys, being hosed down to cleanse them of body wastes and then administered enemas, visible bed sores on their backsides. They are being treated like cattle, not wounded warriors. These are in-your-face disgusting conditions; using the shock factor, Stone figuratively smacks the audience in the face with how returning damaged vets were treated. It is Fourth of July and it is Ron Kovic’s birthday.
We are there when Kovic is told the news he will never walk again; he will be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. Wearing heavy leg braces and using crutches, Kovic is determined to prove doctors wrong and we are witness to his struggle. He drags himself around Physical Therapy, encouraging others with his determination to be the best. (“If you wanna be the best, you gotta sacrifice.”) He falls and breaks his femur (thigh bone), it is a compound fracture (the broken bone protruding through the skin). He dreams he is walking and then running through veterans in wheelchairs. The reality is there is vomit on the floor, his Foley (urine) bag is full. He is at the mercy of the nurses and orderlies. He needs a bath, he needs his sheets changed, it has been four days. He is existing in filth and squalor. “I just want to be treated like a human being. I want my legs.” Again, Stone shoves into our faces, and rightly so, the horrors of the treatment of our returning damaged Viet Nam veterans and causes one to think, “would it have been better if they had died.”
Ronnie comes home to Massapequa to his parents’ house in a wheel chair where an access ramp has been built for him. Stone exemplifies a veteran’s bittersweet homecoming with Major the dog greeting him and neighbors hesitantly come out to gather around him. It is a very emotional scene, and Stone makes sure we are drawn in and feel it. Back in his old room, Ronnie looks at his old high school trophies; a time that seems so very long ago.
The unpopularity of the war is growing and people are becoming more vocal against it. People who are not directly involved in the war want to ignore it and the veterans who fought in it. At the dinner table Ronnie’s younger brother expresses his antiwar sentiments, which Ronnie can not believe his own brother’s views, and takes it personally. “They just don’t know what is going on there.” One is made to feel that Kovic’s battle-earned paralysis is all for nothing.
At the July 4, 1969 Massapequa Parade, Ronnie Kovic is dressed in his Marine Corps Bravos for the annual parade. Riding in the back seat of a convertible, waving to crowds along the route, he hears firecrackers and visibly flinches--hmmm, just like the WWII veteran he saw years ago. Antiwar protesters are yelling obscenities and giving him the finger, a common treatment for Viet Nam Veterans; a scene which could have been more effective if Stone had done close-ups of the protesters. Ronnie and his friend Timmy reminisce in the dark on the front porch. Ronnie says he failed. “I’d give all my values, everything I believe in to have my body back whole again.” He sacrificed but he does not feel is was for the best.
Ronnie’s drinking escalates and becomes more unwelcome in his parents’ home. He comes home drunk from a bar, angry and disruptive, and tells his parents that all the values with which he was raised are false. He tells them he killed women and children over there. “God is as dead as my legs. I want to be a man again. Who’s gonna love me.” He is a pathetic and disillusioned figure of tragic proportions one would find in classic drama. Sadly, he has not yet hit the emotional bottom but has a ways more to fall.
Kovic moves to a haven for paralyzed American Veterans in Villa Dulce, Mexico in 1970. The local establishments cater to the veterans’ emotional and physical needs in bars and brothels. He has a series of prostitutes. PTSD leads to flashbacks to killing Wilson in Viet Nam. He and another veteran paraplegic get kicked out of a cab in the middle of nowhere. It is almost comical how they circle around each other in sparing motions, taunting each other, fighting, rolling out of their chairs and lying in the dirt. This is the bottom for Ron Kovic--his pivotal point and he knows it will begin when he asks for forgiveness from the family of Private Wilson.
Ron begins his cathartic pilgrimage when he goes to the cemetery in Venus, Georgia, to visit the grave site of Private Wilson. To actually see the headstone is to finally confront the horror of what he did. He takes a cab to the home of Wilson’s parents. It is a rural isolated area, discarded junk scattered all over the property. The dad talks about how nice the funeral was. Ron notices the Marine memorabilia proudly displayed around the room of previous generations of Wilson men. In a very cathartic act, Ron tearfully tells Wilson’s parents what really happened, how Wilson died. Wilson’s wife says, “I can never forgive you but maybe the Lord can.” Wilson’s mother says, “What is done is done. We understand pain.” This is the beginning of the healing of Ron Kovic’s heart and soul. Rather than continue to be an embittered victim of the Viet Nam War, he takes a pro-active high-profile role in anti-war protests.
At the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami, protesting veterans moves to the floor of the arena. Kovic says “We are sacrificing a whole generation of Americans.” Protesters are physically removed from the convention floor. In a horrific action, Kovic is dumped from his wheel chair and pinned down by police who are trying to handcuff him. A unknown fellow vet runs to his aid and picks him up to evacuate from the area; helicopter sounds in the background, like the day he was shot in Viet Nam. Stone captures and conveys the essence of the scene as total chaos. Kovic is carried to safety and put back in his chair. Led by Kovic’s relentless perseverance to be heard, they return to the park and are swallowed up in the chaos of police and rioters.
Oliver Stone then shows us a juxtaposition of Ron Kovic as an invited guest speaker at the 1976 Democratic National Convention in New York. He is in a coat and tie, clean shaven, and energized to be heard. “It’s been a long way,” he says, as he is carried in his wheel chair down a flight of stairs. Stone shows us that it has not been just a physical journey but a spiritual journey of self discovery and realization, identification and clarification of one’s own values, and a forward vision of life-changing goals. At this convention Kovic is treated with respect and dignity. He is the voice of thousands of Viet Nam Veterans who became disillusioned and protested our presence in this war. “I feel like I’m home,” he reflects. It is finally getting the recognition for and truth of what they did in Viet Nam. There is an effective flashback to Ron’s mother saying, “I had a dream, Ronnie, that you were speaking to a large crowd. And you were saying great things.”
There were many little pieces of facts that if one did not live during those times, the facts are insignificant to today‘s generation. Oliver Stone grew up and lived in the anti-war sentiments during this time and maybe this screen play held a lot of personal feelings for him. Maybe it was cathartic for himself and his generation to make the public aware of Ron Kovic’s plight.
Ron Kovic became a high-profile activist in the anti-war movement. He was a respected advocate for Viet Nam veterans who were poorly treated by their fellow Americans upon their return to the United States and for years after. Some background information on Ron Kovic makes the film even more touching and comprehensible. He took on the Veterans Administration for the often inhumane treatment of wounded veterans in the medical facilities, bringing to the public’s attention the harsh conditions under which many of our veterans were expected to recuperate and thrive, thereby causing the chief administrator to resign in disgrace. Kovic wrote his graphic autobiographical memoir Born on the Fourth of July as a cathartic act and to raise the awareness of his plight as a wounded returning Viet Nam veteran and thousands more like him. He received the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay on January 20, 1990, exactly twenty-two years to the day that he was wounded in Viet Nam. “I have been called a Communist and a traitor, simply for trying to tell the truth about what has happened in that war, but I refused to be intimidated.”
