Hurricane Street

Description

Ron Kovic's impassioned, timely memoir about the American Veterans Movement picks up where Born on the Fourth of July leaves off. In the spring of 1974, as the last American troops were being pulled out of Vietnam, Kovic and a crew of other severely injured veterans in a California VA hospital launched the American Veterans Movement. In a phenomenal feat of political organizing, Kovic corralled his fellow AVM members into staging a sit-in, and then a hunger strike, in the Los Angeles office of Senator Alan Cranston, demanding better treatment of injured veterans.

Ron Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Along with Oliver Stone, Kovic was the coscreenwriter of the 1989 Academy Award-winning film based on Kovic's best-selling memoir Born on the Fourth of July (starring Tom Cruise as Kovic).

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