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far worse than any battle they fought while in Vietnam. No one seemed to fully understand what these men had went through. They came home looking for love and comfort; little did they know that they had not yet experienced the worst of the war. A numerous amount of people were for the war, but the reality was, many were against it. ' During 1967 public support for the war dropped sharply. By October approval of Johnson's handling of the war dropped to 28 %. A number of major metropolitan newspapers shifted from supporting the war to opposing it' (Wexler 145).
Once the public realized that the war wasn't all glory, they regretted the country's involvement. The government wasn't exactly the most reliable source of information during the war. They couldn't be counted on when they were needed most. The government's handling of aid for veteran's seemed to be carelessly handled.
Veterans were treated poorly and promises were broken frequently. The majority of the American population had no clue that the government was hiding information about POWs. ' From September 1973 to March 1974, a series of unrelated witnesses reported the movement of nine POWs between two Laotian prison camps' (Sauter 189). Similar accounts of American prisoners's ight ings were hidden from the public. Ron Kovic was not a prisoner of war. Instead he was sent home after being wounded. His return home was originally fine; everything he thought it would be.
Yet he did not receive the welcome he had hoped for. Many resented him. He received blank stares and vicious glares. even his own brother was against the war. His family was baffled by the pessimistic view towards life that he had picked up along the way. In Born on the Fourth of July, Ron Kovic often mentioned that the veterans' hospitals were torture chambers. ' It is easy to lose it all here.
The whole place functions smoothly, but somewhere along the way I am losing, and the rest of the people whom I can't see in the rooms around me are losing too. Even if I heal this leg, I will lose. No one ever leaves this place without losing' (Kovic 129). He felt this way, because he had seen the reality of the war, and he was appalled by the treatment the men received. Even after they had fought for their country and risked their lives, they realized they hadn't made much progress, and they were only losing what the dignity and life they had left. Ronnie suffered a paralyzing injury in Vietnam.
He was numb from the waist down. He would never walk again. He would spend the remainder of his life stuck in a wheelchair, and it hurt him because it was a constant reminder of the war and of his sacrifice that no one noticed. Ronnie struggled most with his conscience when he killed innocent people, like the captain. ' The chaplain had a memorial service that afternoon for a man he had killed and he sat in the tent with the rest of the men. There was a wife and a kid, someone said' (Kovic 194). For years Ronny felt extremely guilty for killing the soldier.
He had tried desperately to confess and apologized to his wife and child, but their hearts could not pardon him. Ronnie felt desperate. He felt he had no use in the world because he could not use his legs. Before the war he was known for his athleticism. After the war, he had no choice, but to rely on his heart and mind, and that was something he wasn't sure how to do. To express his thoughts and feelings was almost unheard of.
The emotional impact on all of the veterans was a horrid one. ' Being trapped seeing someone blown to pieces, his blood ad splinters of bones and insides and brains all over you is outside the range of usual human experience' (Mason 23). Many veterans had psychological problems and suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is a psychological disorder affecting individuals who have experienced profound emotional shock, such as torture or rape, characterized by periodic flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares, eating disorders, anxiety, fatigue, amnesia, and social withdrawal. Many veterans could not cope with coming back to a changed America, and as a result they turned to drugs and alcohol. This abuse and change in attitude left many veterans jobless and some even homeless.
They probably had no idea that their lives would not be back to normal once they returned home. Ron's paralysis in his legs had an immense impact on his life. His lack of mobility kept him from doing all sorts of things he had dreamed of doing. He would never be a professional baseball player or even be able to run again. He best described the effect his 'new' body had on him when he wrote, ' I feel like a bog clumsy puppet with all his strings cut. I learn to balance and twist in the chair so no one can tell how much of me does not feel or move anymore.
I find it easy to hide from most of them what I am going through. All of us are like this. No one wants too many people to know how much of him has really died in the war' (Kovic 37). He could no longer perform the everyday actions that most people took for granted. Ron's change in his attitude toward the war was bitter and aggressive. He resented the government and all people who supported the war.
What had Ron become? He used to be an All-American boy. Characterized by his intense love for his country; his patriotism exuded in everything he did. However, once he realized how naive he'd been about war in general, he learned to hate it.
He'd lecture to families and children not to enlist for the war, because they might not come back how they had dreamed. They might come back like him, or not even come back at all. A few choice veterans overcame the adversity, but despite the few gains made by Vietnam vets, in many situations, public perspectives toward the veterans had taken up the enemy's bullets left off. Instead, they had bullets of hatred and rancor shot at them.
Their lives were never the same. Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976. Mason, Patience H.
C. Recovering from the War. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Saunders, Jim, and Mark Sauter. The Men We Left Behind.
Bethesda: Saunders and Sauter, 1993. Wexler, Sanford. An Eyewitness History: The Vietnam War. New York: Wexler, 1992
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Research essay sample on Fourth Of July Born On The Fourth War
