Ron Kovic: "We must remain nonviolent:"

Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist who led a peaceful march in Denver at the DNC the day before (Monday) hurried to the scene in his wheelchair from his downtown hotel after he heard about the confrontation.

"We must remain nonviolent. We must have the high moral ground," he told the crowd.

Excerpt from: "Police, protesters clash as Dems convene in Denver" article by JUDITH KOHLER and COLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press WritersTue Aug 26, 12:45 AM ET

DENVER—Denver authorities were busy early Tuesday processing about 100 people who were arrested when police officers and protesters clashed about a mile from the site of the Democratic National Convention.

The confrontation erupted Monday night as police in riot gear tried to disperse a crowd of about 300 people that was disrupting traffic near the Denver City and County Building...

...AP Television News video showed one group of protesters counting down from 10 and then charging at police. They quickly retreated as police shoved them back. Some of the officers gripped their batons, one hand at either end, as they pushed the protesters back...

(the physical protesters appear to have a different agenda than most the protesters)

It was believed to be the first time a police-protester confrontation turned physical and the first time officers used any kind of chemical spray since demonstrations began on Sunday, a day before the convention...

Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist who led a peaceful march the day before, hurried to the scene in his wheelchair from his downtown hotel after he heard about the confrontation.

"We must remain nonviolent. We must have the high moral ground," he told the crowd.

"There's a powerful police presence here. The chill of 1968 is in the air of Denver," said Kovic, whose story was chronicled in the book and movie "Born on the Fourth of July."

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Ron Kovic Leader Among Leaders

Ron Kovic was a former Marine Corps sergeant and the author of -Born on the 4th of July-. This is from the introduction to that book:

"I have watched in horror the mirror image of another Vietnam unfolding. So many similarities, so many things said that remind me of that war thirty years ago which left me paralyzed for the rest of my life. Refusing to learn from our experiences in Vietnam, our government continues to pursue a policy of deception, distortion, manipulation, and denial, doing everything it can to hide from the American people their true intentions and agenda in Iraq. The flag-draped caskets of our dead begin their long and sorrowful journeys home hidden from public view, while the Iraqi casualties are not even considered worth counting--some estimate as many as 100,000 have been killed so far.

The paraplegics, amputees, burn victims, the blinded and maimed, shocked and stunned, brain damaged and psychologically stressed, now fill our veterans’ hospitals. Most of them were not even born when I came home wounded to the Bronx V.A. in 1968. The same lifesaving medical-evacuation procedures that kept me alive in Vietnam are bringing home a whole new generation of severely maimed from Iraq.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted so many of us after Vietnam, is just now beginning to appear among soldiers recently returned from the current war. For some, the agony and suffering, the sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and awful bouts of insomnia, loneliness, alienation, anger, and rage, will last for decades, if not their whole lives. They will be trapped in a permanent nightmare of that war, of killing another man, a child, watching a friend die ... fighting against an enemy that can never be seen, while at any moment someone--a child, a woman, an old man, anyone--might kill you. These traumas return home with us and we carry them, sometimes hidden, for agonizing decades. They deeply impact our daily lives, and the lives of those closest to us.

To kill another human being, to take another life out of this world with one pull of a trigger, is something that never leaves you. It is as if a part of you dies with them."

Mr. Kovic along with Oliver Stone was the co-screenwriter of the film BORN ON THE 4th of JULY released in December 1989. This Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Tom Cruise is based on the life of Ron Kovic.

Mr. Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968. He has been paralyzed and in a wheelchair ever since. Mr. Kovic is an accomplished author and painter. He continues to work for peace.


Ron is a passionate spokesman for peace. See Ron's amazing works of art and VIEW a short MY HERO film and more about his Special Hero Award--go to my hero dot org.
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