Resources for Teachers and Students on Ron Kovic
Prepare: Ron Kovic was a U.S. Marine who suffered
a spinal cord injury due to enemy fire during the Vietnam
War, and became a leading activist against the war by helping
to organize the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. His biography
can be found on the "My Hero" website.
Read:
Ron Kovic's brief Architects
of Peace essay is excerpted from a magazine article,
"When a System Goes Astray, Go to the Streets: Today's
Leaders Look to Tomorrow."
Explore: Ron Kovic wrote a best-selling biography,
Born on the Fourth of July, which was made into an Academy
Award-winning film by Oliver Stone. Both DVD and VHS versions
of this film are available in most video stores.
Write: In his Architects of Peace essay, Ron Kovic
claims that those who opposed the Vietnam War were good
citizens. How is this possible? Do citizens have an obligation
to "support our troops" during times of war? Is
there something un-patriotic about anti-war sentiment? Under
what circumstances does anti-war activism constitute good
citizenship? Write a three-to-five page reflective paper
in which you take a stance on one of these questions.
Extend: Ron Kovic continued to function as a peace
activist even after the conclusion of the Vietnam War. He
has helped organize anti-war demonstrations recently to
protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and was interviewed
by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about one such demonstration in Washington,
D.C.
Additional Resource: Ron Kovic helped organize a
group of his fellow veterans who had become peace activists
into an organization called Vietnam
Veterans Against the War.
Biography of Ron
Kovic