Undeterred, Kovic continued speaking to students from the school's football grandstands. Kovic's speech that day was interrupted by a bomb threat and the auditorium was cleared. He attended his first peace demonstration soon after the Kent State shootings in May 1970, and gave his first speech against the war at Levittown Memorial High School in Levittown, Long Island, New York that same spring. Post-Vietnam activism Kovic (left) leading other disabled veterans after ending their 17-day hunger strike, March 1974īefore the end of the war in Vietnam was declared on April 30, 1975, Kovic became one of the best-known peace activists among the Vietnam veterans, and was arrested 12 times for political protesting. As a result of his service and injuries in the conflict, Kovic was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat 'V' for heroism in battle and the Purple Heart. Kovic spent a week in an intensive care ward in Da Nang. The first Marine that tried to save him was shot through the heart and killed, before a second Marine carried Kovic to safety through heavy enemy fire. Deserted by most of his unit, he was shot first in the right foot, which tore out the back of his heel, then again through the right shoulder, suffering a collapsed lung and a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the chest down. On January 20, 1968, while leading a reconnaissance force of battalion scouts from the 1st Amtrac Battalion just north of the Cửa Việt River in the vicinity of the village of Mỹ Lộc, in the Demilitarized Zone, Kovic's squad came into contact with the NVA 803rd Regiment and elements of a Viet Cong battalion that was besieging the village he was shot by NVA soldiers while leading his rifle squad across an open area, attempting to aid the South Vietnamese Popular Force unit in the village. Several months later, he volunteered to return to Vietnam for a second tour of duty.

He was subsequently assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Cherry Point, North Carolina. After a 13-month tour of duty, he returned home on January 15, 1967.

In June 1966, he was transferred to Bravo Company, Second Platoon, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division where he participated in 22 long range reconnaissance patrols in enemy territory and was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V for valor. Kovic volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War, and was sent to South Vietnam in December 1965 as a member of H&S Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division.

Kovic grew up in Massapequa, New York, and graduated in 1964 from Massapequa High School on Long Island. Eli Thomas Kovic met Lamb while serving in the Navy during the Second World War after both enlisted shortly after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Kovic was born in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, the second of six children of Patricia Ann Lamb (Janu– June 30, 2006) and Eli Thomas Kovic (Aug– May 1, 1999). Kovic received the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay on January 20, 1990, 22 years to the day that he was wounded in Vietnam, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. His 1976 memoir Born on the Fourth of July was made into the film of the same name which starred actor Tom Cruise as Kovic, and was co-written by Kovic and directed by Oliver Stone. Ronald Lawrence Kovic (born July 4, 1946) is an American anti-war activist, writer, and United States Marine Corps sergeant who was wounded and paralyzed in the Vietnam War.

Anti war rally venice beach 1968