American History 266
Extra Credit
Born on the Fourth of July
Ron Kovic is a patriotic ideal youth, when the outbreak of the Vietnam War, he resolutely left his hometown on the battlefield, the town for him to drum up support, suddenly he became a hero in the town. But When Ron Kovic truly enters the battlefield, only to find that previously received military training, is very different with the real war, the brutality of war and the military colleague reality, to make him the ideal instant disillusionment! In the first battle, the bullet hit the spine of Kovic, his paraplegia return home, but the anti-war sentiment, making home no longer regard him as a hero, Ron Kovic, he can not face his family life, and even their own, so all day indulging in alcohol. After a period of adaptation before to come forward, the emphasis on veterans with disabilities, and expectations of the people unite and spend the shadow of the Vietnam War brought a reminder of its own experience.
Vietnam War came to an end for decades, but the hearts of Americans concerned about humanity and the world situation is difficult to shake off a shadow, one and a Vietnam War movies, we come back to the Killing Fields, reproduction that beyond outside the normal human experience trauma, but also a more than a broader perspective and a deeper reflection.
"Justice" is built on such a basis it? For freedom, dignity, glory, can be openly humiliated, tortured, massacred the enemy and accept praise?
Kovic's transformation more or less reflects the shift of the United States the public view of the Vietnam War, but he is very different from the baptism of the Vietnam War and has not been anti-war students. His last anti-war is not so much based on another kind of "justice" to replace the "justice", but that he is "compassion" instead of "justice".
The Vietnam War, is a nightmare for the United States, but also a human catastrophe. After the end of the Vietnam War more than a decade, "Born on the Fourth of July" rising from the ashes of these people, given all human sacrifice and suffering in this catastrophe meaning, only to "compassion" suture "justice "wounds, but humans can remember this lesson?
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