Kovic, Ron. A Dangerous Country: An American Elegy. Akaschic, 2024.
Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I am lucky to receive interesting books to read and review.
A Dangerous Country is separated into three parts. Part One is a year-long diary written with a good friend in mind. The entries are short and this section moves along quickly. When Kovic first arrives for his second tour of duty, he is impatient for action; he has a strong desire to learn and has a few sweethearts he wishes would write more often. At goes goes on Kovic is so busy with patrols and scouting that he doesn’t have time to record what the mail did (or did not) bring him. The entire time Kovic is in Vietnam he has a fervent wish to protect our country from the threat of communist slavery. The letter written by Father Harrington to his parents about his injuries ends Part One.
The second section of A Dangerous Country begins a little more than six months after Kovic suffers his paralyzing injuries on January 20th 1968. Part Two is the political awakening Kovic has once he returns to civilian duty as a disable veteran. When you speak out against war you expose yourself to threats of being seen as anti-American because war is our middle name. We are not afraid to join it if the price is right. Criticize at your own peril. Why else would Kovic’s phone be tapped? Why else would he be arrested for speaking his mind? This is the section where Kovic starts to question the reality of God.
Part Three opens in San Francisco, California in 1982. Kovic struggles with finding his place in society. Art, writing, and theater occupy his search for self, both spiritually and sexually. As an aside, Kovic reclaiming his sexual identity was one of the most poignant parts of his story. With devastating guilt comes suicidal thoughts and all-time lows. This is the most painful part of the story. What is unclear is how much forgiveness Kovic has afforded himself by the end of A Dangerous Country. While he will never be completely free of the horrors of war (memory is a powerful weapon of self-destruction), Kovic has made great strides to live in peace. His inner strength and fighting spirit end A Dangerous Country with hope and acceptance.
I love it when two books collide. I am reading City Room at the same time as A Dangerous Country. In Kovic’s book he began his second tour of duty seeing John F. Kennedy as an inspirational leader, calling for young men to be heroes in Vietnam. Gelb, on the other hand, describes President Kennedy differently, telling of Kennedy’s need to stop reporter Halberstam from telling the truth about Vietnam.
Confessional: I had a moment of panic when I read that A Dangerous Country was part of a trilogy written by Ron Kovic. I was worried I wouldn’t get the full picture of A Dangerous Country if I had not read Born on the Fourth of July or Hurricane Street. (Second confession: I had not).
Second confessional: you never find out what happened to Kathy or Karen. They are never mentioned again. I was disappointed they were not a bigger part of his life when Kovic got home.
As an aside, my uncle does not like to talk about Vietnam at all. One day, for whatever reason, he pulled out a battered photo album and started sharing stories about the pictures within. One photograph was especially memorable to me. It was of my uncle and several members of his platoon. They were on a boat, posed with their arms around each other, trying to smile. The men were not remarkable. Their poses were not dramatic. It was what my uncle said while looking down at the smiling faces, “There was a dead man floating in the water behind us when this photo was taken.”
Author fact: I think it goes without saying that everyone knows Ron Kovic whether they realize it or not. If they have seen the movie version of Born on the Fourth of July starring Tom Cruise, they definitely know Mr. Kovic.
Book trivia: even though A Dangerous Country is only 263 pages long with short chapters, I took a long to finish it because war is never an easy subject for me to read about. Primary sources are even harder.
Playlist: “Auld Lang Syne”, “Comfort and Joy”, “Strange Days” by The Doors, “The First Noel”, Eartha Kitt, Gregorian chants, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”, and The Marine Corp Hymn.
~*LunaSea*~ 