Born on the Fourth of July. Ron Kovic

me to a stretcher. My legs dangle off the sides until they realize I cannot control them. “I can’t move them,” I say, almost in a whisper. “I can’t move them.” I’m still carefully sucking the air, trying to calm myself, trying not to get excited, not to panic. I want to live. I keep telling myself, Take it slow now, as they strap my legs to the stretcher and carry my wounded body into an Amtrac packed with other wounded men. The steel trapdoor of the Amtrac slowly closes as we begin to move to the northern bank and back across the river to the battalion area.

      Men are screaming all around me. “Oh God get me out of here!” “Please help!” they scream. Oh Jesus, like little children now, not like marines, not like the posters, not like that day in the high school, this is for real. “Mother!” screams a man without a face. “Oh I don’t want to die!” screams a young boy cupping his intestines with his hands. “Oh please, oh no, oh God, oh help! Mother!” he screams again.

      We are moving slowly through the water, the Amtrac rocking back and forth. We cannot be brave anymore, there is no reason. It means nothing now. We hold on to ourselves, to things around us, to memories, to thoughts, to dreams. I breathe slowly, desperately trying to stay awake.

      The steel trapdoor is opening. I see faces. Corpsmen, I think. Others, curious, looking in at us. Air, fresh, I feel, I smell. They are carrying me out now. Over wounded bodies, past wounded screams. I’m in a helicopter now lifting above the battalion area. I’m leaving the war. I’m going to live. I am still breathing, I keep thinking over and over, I’m going to live and get out of here.

      They are shoving tubes and needles in my arms. Now we are being packed into planes. I begin to believe more and more as I watch the other wounded packed around me on shelves that I am going to live.

      I still fight desperately to stay awake. I am in an ambulance now rushing to some place. There is a man without any legs screaming in pain, moaning like a little baby. He is bleeding terribly from the stumps that were once his legs, thrashing his arms wildly about his chest, in a semiconscious daze. It is almost too much for me to watch.

      I cannot take much more of this. I must be knocked out soon, before I lose my mind. I’ve seen too much today, I think. But I hold on, sucking the air. I shout then curse for him to be quiet. “My wound is much worse than yours!” I scream. “You’re lucky,” I shout, staring him in the eyes. “I can feel nothing from my chest down. You at least still have part of your legs. Shut up!” I scream again. “Shut the fuck up, you goddamned baby!” He keeps thrashing his arms wildly above his head and kicking his bleeding stumps toward the roof of the ambulance.

      The journey seems to take a very long time, but soon we are at the place where the wounded are sent. I feel a tremendous exhilaration inside me. I have made it this far. I have actually made it this far without giving up and now I am in a hospital where they will operate on me and find out why I cannot feel anything from my chest down anymore. I know I am going to make it now. I am going to make it not because of any god, or any religion, but because I want to make it, I want to live. And I leave the screaming man without legs and am brought to a room that is very bright.

      “What’s your name?” the voice shouts.

      “Wh-wh-what?” I say.

      “What’s your name?” the voice says again.

      “K-K-Kovic,” I say.

      “No!” says the voice. “I want your name, rank, and service number. Your date of birth, the name of your father and mother.”

      “Kovic. Sergeant. Two-oh-three-oh-two-six-one, uh, when are you going to . . .”

      “Date of birth!” the voice shouts.

      “July fourth, nineteen forty-six. I was born on the Fourth of July. I can’t feel . . .”

      “What religion are you?”

      “Catholic,” I say.

      “What outfit did you come from?”

      “What’s going on? When are you going to operate?” I say.

      “The doctors will operate,” he says. “Don’t worry,” he says confidently. “They are very busy and there are many wounded but they will take care of you soon.”

      He continues to stand almost at attention in front of me with a long clipboard in his hand, jotting down all the information he can. I cannot understand why they are taking so long to operate. There is something very wrong with me, I think, and they must operate as quickly as possible. The man with the clipboard walks out of the room. He will send the priest in soon.

      I lie in the room alone staring at the walls, still sucking the air, determined to live more than ever now.

      The priest seems to appear suddenly above my head. With his fingers he is gently touching my forehead, rubbing it slowly and softly. “How are you,” he says.

      “I’m fine, Father.” His face is very tired but it is not frightened. He is almost at ease, as if what he is doing he has done many times before.

      “I have come to give you the Last Rites, my son.”

      “I’m ready, Father,” I say.

      And he prays, rubbing oils on my face and gently placing the crucifix to my lips. “I will pray for you,” he says.

      “When will they operate?” I say to the priest.

      “I do not know,” he says. “The doctors are very busy. There are many wounded. There is not much time for anything here but trying to live. So you must try to live my son, and I will pray for you.”

      Soon after that I am taken to a long room where there are many doctors and nurses. They move quickly around me. They are acting very competent. “You will be fine,” says one nurse calmly.

      “Breathe deeply into the mask,” the doctor says.

      “Are you going to operate?” I ask.

      “Yes. Now breathe deeply into the mask.” As the darkness of the mask slowly covers my face I pray with all my being that I will live through this operation and see the light of day once again. I want to live so much. And even before I go to sleep with the blackness still swirling around my head and the numbness of sleep, I begin to fight as I have never fought before in my life.

      I awake to the screams of other men around me. I have made it. I think that maybe the wound is my punishment for killing the corporal and the children. That now everything is okay and the score is evened up. And now I am packed in this place with the others who have been wounded like myself, strapped onto a strange circular bed. I feel tubes going into my nose and hear the clanking, pumping sound of a machine. I still cannot feel any of my body but I know I am alive. I feel a terrible pain in my chest. My body is so cold. It has never been this weak. It feels so tired and out of touch, so lost and in pain. I can still barely breathe. I look around me, at people moving in shadows of numbness. There is the man who had been in the ambulance with me, screaming louder than ever, kicking his bloody stumps in the air, crying for his mother, crying for his morphine.

      Directly across from me there is a Korean who has not even been in the war at all. The nurse says he was going to buy a newspaper when he stepped on a booby trap and it blew off both his legs and his arm. And all that is left now is this slab of meat swinging one arm crazily in the air, moaning like an animal gasping for its last bit of life, knowing that death is rushing toward him. The Korean is screaming like a madman at the top of his lungs. I cannot wait for the shots of morphine. Oh, the morphine feels so good. It makes everything dark and quiet. I can rest. I can leave this madness. I can dream of my back yard once again.

      When I wake they are screaming still and the lights are on and the clock, the clock on the wall, I can hear it ticking to the sound of their screams. I can hear the dead being carted out and the new wounded being brought in to the beds all around me. I have to get out of this place.

      “Can I call you by your first name?” I say to the nurse.

      “No. My name is Lieutenant