Coming Home: Activist Ron Kovic Celebrates Anniversary of Disabilities Law

By Jorge Casuso

More than two decades after he penned the landmark anti-war book "Born on the Fourth of July" in an Ocean Park apartment just a short wheelchair ride away, activist Ron Kovic returned to downtown Santa Monica.

At the Ken Edwards Center Wednesday night Kovic - who was paralyzed from the chest down in the Vietnam War -- received a hero's welcome from a crowd of nearly 100 activists and community leaders who came to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the American Disabilities Act.

Local activists, many of them disabled, cheered and wept during poems, speeches and songs and used the occasion to push for a Santa Monica Disabilities Commission being considered by the City Council.

"We have over 75 wonderful endorsements from groups all over the area," said Jerry Rubin, the president of Alliance for Survival who was the event's master of ceremonies. "There's a lot of stuff happening here both spiritually and politically. There's a lot of positive energy in this room."

Kovic - who was portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 1989 film "Born on the Fourth of July" - recalled his personal struggle to find meaning in life, then his political battle to protest war and win rights for the disabled.

"Many of the faces in the audience I know," Kovic told the crowd. "We went to jail together."

After those opening words, Kovic urged the crowd to fight the political forces that want to set back the gains made by disabilities activists who pushed for the landmark law that covers 43 million Americans with physical and emotional disabilities.

"They're talking about watering down these rights," Kovic said. "There are people beginning to say that it's costing too much money. There are certain things that money can't buy. Money can't buy freedom. Money can't buy equality. Money can't buy justice.

"No matter how powerful the opposition, we're the most powerful we've been as a people," Kovic said. "We must never ever bow or scrape or cower to a president or representative. It is for them to recognize that we are the power, the heart and the soul and the strength and the beauty and the love.

"If you try to move us back... then you will infringe upon the rights of every American," Kovic said. "We are not alone. We have allies. We have friends. If you take away our rights, then it will not only be disabled people who take to the streets. It will be those who are not disabled, and they will show up in the tens of thousands and they will fill up the jails of this country."

Kovic recalled returning from the war and settling in an Ocean Park apartment he shared with a friend just a few blocks from the beach.

"I remember feeling lost.... I used to drive down to the beach every day and I looked out at that ocean and I thought, 'What am I going to do with my life?'" Kovic said. "I used to sit in the front seat of my car and I would feel so lonely."

It was in a Santa Monica paper that Kovic read that Vietnam War veterans were throwing away their medals and it was in Santa Monica that he made a decision that would change his life and put him in the national spotlight. Kovic decided "that I could no longer be silent."

"Dr. (Martin Luther) King taught us that it was quite normal to be silent," Kovic told the crowd. "He talked about how difficult it was to cross that line, to raise your voice to speak out... against injustice, against war, against prejudice. Once one person does it, another person can do it and another and another....

"Once you've stepped over that line individually, you become stronger," Kovic said. "We're so much stronger than we think we are.... We're a powerful people. We have an important mission. We must do it peacefully, non-violently and with courage and dignity. We're all in this together. We're much more connected than we realize."

Kovic said there is a growing movement afoot, and he predicted that it will burst into prominence during next month's Democratic National Convention in downtown Los Angeles.

"There is a rumbling," Kovic said. "There is a tremendously dramatic grassroots movement that's going to peacefully explode. The next phase is going to be a very powerful force. We are going to change this country forever."

After Kovic's speech, the activist joined nine others - including Councilman Richard Bloom, Police Chief James T. Butts Jr., Rent Control Board member Alan Toy and Neil Carrey, an education activist who recently lost his teenage son, Chris, to cancer - in lighting ten candles on a cake to commemorate the anniversary of the disabilities act.