Born on the Fourth of July
...ing camouflage, holding a rifle and being shot at, nothing more. Ron kills a comrade. In the heat of a battle, a silhouette comes running over a hill and Ron fires at it three times, as the man falls he realizes what he has done. This is a major point in which the film transforms the war into a mistake; the war is now questionable and unnecessary. The last battle he fought in a civilian village was fired upon by accident, and Ron is shocked by what he sees, he is speechless. As they retreat, VC’s begin to populate and fire on the marines. Ron is seriously injured, paralyzed from the chest down. Oliver Stone does a lot of precise film work on this scene, he zooms into the faces of the injured civilians, showing you the bleeding wounds a living baby and no family to care for it, for they have all been killed. Stone also carefully films Ron’s final critical actions in this battle, when he is shot in the heel, rather than laying low, he takes his equipment off and fires blindly through the village. He is then shot through the right shoulder twice which paralyzes him and makes him unable to fight again. Ron is then transported to a hospital in Tokyo, blood is everywhere, men are dieing all around him, the war was introduced as a reality to him before and now death is becoming a reality. Kovic is read his last rites by a priest in the chance that he may die before he receives attention. The footage of the war hospital is horribly gory. Stone made it a point to recreate hell, men are screaming, one mans waist is blown apart, several soldiers are still, some foaming at the mouth, it is unreal. Ron returns to the states to be cared for in a veteran’s hospital, a very low class facility with state paid nurses. Rats scurry the floors and the once patriots are treated horribly by the country they fought for. The home that Ron returns to is very supportive of him aside from his brother, an anti-war enthusiast. The family that Kovic wanted to make proud was now sorry for him and somewhat against what he had done, the country had betrayed him, and so had his family. Oliver Stone shoots a scene in which Ron is screaming inside of their home, cursing at the mother, pulling out his false urinary hose, the neighbors come out and are on the streets listening in awe to this teen that had been ravaged by a war. Kovic is kicked out of the house and he flees to Mexico. In Mexico, Ron reaches an ultimate low. He is taking after another veteran who been paralyzed and was now drinking away his worries in a bar and paying prostitutes to try an...